


Love Rocks When It Doesn't Bite

by LadyShadowphyre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Balthazar is a flirt, Brief cameo by Ava Wilson, Cas and Gabe are Basque/Spaniards, Castiel Hates The Princess Bride, Castiel Is A Considerate Boyrfriend, Castiel is Castiel Espinosa, Dean Winchester (mentioned) - Freeform, Discussion Of Sex But No Actual Sex, Discussion of Boundaries and Consent, Disjointed Church Sermons, Except When He's Called Lucifer on Stage, Gabriel And Castiel Are Cousins, Gabriel is Gabriel Ochoa, Gratuitous Music, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Lucifer (Supernatural) is Called Luke, Lucifer (Supernatural) mentioned, M/M, Michael is Michael Gottlieb, Oblique References to Sexual Self-Service, Zach is a bro, non-graphic nudity, warning: mentions of off-screen attempted sexual assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: Fallen From Gracewas one of the hottest local rock bands in the Palo Alto area with the eyes of potential labels on them until guitarist and lead singer Luke "Lucifer" Gottlieb quit without warning to go solo. With a concert date looming that could make or break the band, bassist Castiel Espinosa takes a tip from his ex-girlfriend that Stanford student Sam Winchester might just be the Hail Mary thatFallenneeds to keep flying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VegasGranny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VegasGranny/gifts).



> Written for FicFacer$ charity auction winner Kathy Randall!
> 
> _I just started reading your Broken Hallelujah, and I'm a huge fan of the Cadbury Universe, I know you're involved with that too :)_  
>  _Anyway -_  
>  _Maybe we can have some fluffs, warm and kind and happy with Cas and Sam? Cas trying to flirt with Sam? IDK Just have fun with it so we can both enjoy this?_
> 
> As you wish~ ^_^

**T** HE DOOR TO room 221 loomed ahead of Castiel Espinosa like the Gates of Saint Peter, promising either eternal salvation or eternal damnation on the other side and no way of knowing which until he knocked and was met by the Gatekeeper. The fanciful turn of phrase could probably be blamed on the half a joint he'd shared with his cousin and bandmate Gabriel to quiet his nerves before coming up here, but the trepidation was all him.

_"I got someone for ya, Clarence."_

_"Meg, I swear if this is another of your girlfriends who wants a threeway--"_

_"It's not, promise. Look, you need a new guitarist and lead singer, right? Since Lucifer bailed?"_

_"Luke. He doesn't get to be called Lucifer now."_

_"Not what I heard going around the studio, but whatever. You need a replacement, right? Someone who can slot in and not fuck up your band's chance at the big time?"_

_"I know we're named for angels, Meg, but I'm kinda fresh out of miracles."_

_"Good thing you got me, then! Perk up, buttercup, I've got the key to your salvation in Crawford Hall dorm two-twenty-one!"_

And so here Castiel was, staring down the dorm room door, trying to work up the nerve to knock purely on the word of his ex-girlfriend that the boy behind the door was good enough to keep _Fallen From Grace_ flying instead of plummeting.

"You need him," he muttered to himself. "Without a guitarist, _Fallen_ will flop. Man up and fucking knock!"

He knocked.

"Just a sec!" a male voice called from within the room. Castiel could hear something being shuffled, followed by footsteps. The door knob rattled as the lock was turned, and then the door was swinging open and Castiel was looking straight at someone's chest covered by a purple t-shirt with a lighter purple greyhound on it. He craned his head back and peered up at....

.... _Oh._

When Meg had described her sister's former roommate to Castiel, she had said things like "built like a really climbable tree" and "I never actually heard him play but Ruby swears he could make you cry from joy to hear him" and "tried his best to get my sister off heroin, the damn sainted fool" and even "can go from puppy to sex god in ten seconds". At no point during all of that had she ever actually told Castiel that Sam Winchester was "the boy in the back row of every _Fallen_ show within twenty miles of Stanford".

It was impossible to mistake him. The chestnut brown waves of hair that he'd seen glowing under club lights and bar lights and now the dorm hall's lights set above those defined cheekbones, sculpted nose, pouty lips that Castiel had seen bitten so many times when he or Gabe had sent the boy a flirtatious glance during the show, the strong jawline that clenched tight whenever it was Luke who leered at him, the rush of dark pink across his cheeks when Castiel had dared lick his lips in the boy's direction once... Up close, he could finally see the details of the eyes he'd felt the weight of so often, and he still couldn't pin down the color. Green? Gold like Gabriel's? Some kaleidoscopic sunflower mix with stars fallen straight from Heaven tossed in the mix? Those eyes, whatever color they were, were very wide right now and staring at Castiel in shock.

"You're Castiel Espinosa," breathed the beautiful boy. Young man, really, Meg had said he wasn't that much younger than Cas, but he looked very young right now with those wide eyes staring at him like he was some kind of angel descended from Heaven.

"And you're Sam Winchester," Castiel returned, blinking up at him in puzzlement when Sam made a slightly strangled noise and his eyes got even wider. "I hope you don't mind Meg giving me your name."

"M-meg?" Sam repeated, obviously confused. "Oh! Uh, Ruby's sister? The blonde?"

"She's back to being brunette now, but yes," Castiel nodded. The motion of his head made the hall waver around him and he stepped in closer to Sam to steady himself against the door frame, tilting his head back even further to keep looking up into those eyes. "The thing is, Sam, I want you. Probably even need you."

"What?!" Sam yelped. Castiel frowned - that wasn't the reaction he had expected - and ran back through what he'd said.

"Oh... no, wait," he muttered. "Need you, definitely need you." Then, because he was nothing if not honest when stoned, he added, "Probably want you, too."

"Uh," Sam stared at him, the shock slowly bleeding from his face into something that Castiel thought might have been concern. "Are you... drunk?"

"No!" Castiel denied, shaking his head. The world around him swam before his eyes and he amended, "Yes. Well. Sort of?" He hadn't been particularly drunk before Meg had called, being less inclined to drink the liquor store in despair than his band mates, but tequila and cannabis were odd when combined, even in moderate amounts. "But that's not why I want you. Need you."

"Okay?" It sounded more like a question than an agreement, but it made Castiel beam up at Sam anyway. His lips were dry enough that he could feel the skin stretching with his grin, and he licked them to moisten the skin.

"Great!" he said, watching as Sam's eyes dropped to his lips before flying guiltily back up to his own. "So you'll come by the Roadhouse at ten tomorrow?"

There was a long moment of silence, then, "What?"

"The Roadhouse," Castiel repeated. "We're all meeting up to rehearse there at ten. Well, Michael will say it's an audition, but it's not like we have anyone else to try out but you." He frowned as a thought occurred to him. "You do still have your guitar, right? Meg said Ruby told her you play, but she'd never seen it...."

"I... guitar... yeah, but..." Sam stumbled to a stop and shook his head. "What is even going on?" he mumbled, probably more to himself than to Castiel.

"Luke quit," Castiel decided to answer him. The wide eyes were back, along with a dropped jaw, so Castiel expounded, "No warning, no consideration or offer to stick it out until we could find a replacement, just up and ditched us."

"Wow... that's gotta suck," Sam said. Castiel peered up at him, but it seemed like the boy really meant the sympathy Castiel was hearing, so he shrugged.

"Nah. Well, yeah, the timing sucks 'cause we got a gig coming up that's pretty much our big ticket make-or-break, but Luke was an asshole with an ego bigger than his talent with a guitar, so in the long run we're probably better off. Uh... don't tell Mike I said that."

"Mike?"

"Our manager." Castiel snorted. "Well, more like Luke's manager, since he was the only one who could tell that bastard what to do. Him bailing was as much a surprise to Mike as to the rest of us, so we reckon he's our manager now."

"I see," Sam said. Castiel wasn't sure he really did, but that wasn't even the important part of the conversation.

"So you'll come to the Roadhouse?" he repeated. "I'll be honest, Sam, you're pretty much our Hail Mary at this point, 'cause..." He trailed off in a weak chuckle. "We gotta have a guitarist. Gotta. You know our music, how much guitar is in it, and otherwise... Otherwise all we can do at this point is get shitfaced and watch our chances at getting signed go up in... fucking _Lucifer's_ hellfire. Y'know?"

"I..." Sam swallowed. "Look, Castiel... I don't know what you're expecting from me, here, but--"

"I can get on my knees if you want," Castiel interrupted, and actually, getting on his knees for Sam sounded like a really good idea right about then. "I think I remember how to do that... S'been a while." He frowned a little, then looked up at Sam hopefully. "You'd let me practice on you a few times first before I really blow your mind, right?"

"Gleep!"

 

**S** AM WAS HAVING a very strange night.

It had started when he got off of work and dragged himself back to his dorm to try and revise yet again for his second attempt at taking the LSAT even though he still hadn't gotten his scores back from his first attempt yet. The door to his dorm was open, unlike how he had left it, and his former roommate was sitting on his bed, eating his leftover egg rolls. Given that the last time he had seen her was just before she moved out after he'd tried to get her into rehab for her heroin addiction, it was something of a shock to see her looking healthy and alert and, perhaps the strangest part given the insults she'd flung at him before, looking pleased to see him.

Before he could say much more than her name, she'd gotten up, popped the last bite of egg roll into her mouth, and shoved a vinyl fabric case into his chest.

"Don't say I never did anything for you, sugarplum," she told him, then waltzed out of the dorm, closing the door behind her. When he opened the case she'd shoved at him, it turned out to contain his old guitar, the one that was perfectly sized to his hands and frame that had gone missing when she'd moved out, completely refurbished with new strings and a glossy black and silver flame finish.

It felt surreal to be holding it again, like being reunited with a lost limb that he had learned to get along without enough not to actively miss until he had it again. He couldn't resist plugging it into the small amp by the foot of his bed that had become a book stack base and running through an open D tuning and a few basic finger exercises to reacquaint himself with his old friend before the guilt of needing to study prodded him into setting his guitar aside and picking up his law book.

That was when a knock sounded on his door and a voice called through the door, "Delivery!" When he got up to answer the door, he discovered that it really was a delivery, one that was already paid in full, for a pizza that Sam was very sure he hadn't ordered. He'd tried to point this out to the delivery guy, but the kid had been adamant that the pizza was to be delivered to Sam Winchester, dorm 221, Crawford Hall, and no, he absolutely could not take it back. Sam had no choice but to give in and take the pizza, which had turned out to be a bizarre combination of barbecue chicken and sausage with mushrooms and ranch dressing. Not a combination Sam had ever wanted to try, or even heard of, even if it was technically free food. He was still puzzling over what to do with it when a second knock had come from the door.

After everything else that had happened so far, it shouldn't have been that much of a shock to find Castiel Espinosa, bassist and back up vocalist for _Fallen From Grace_ , Sam's absolute favorite local band, standing at his door, knowing his name because of Ruby's sister Meg whom Sam had met all of twice, and claiming to need him. Or want him. There seemed to be some confusion over that, not helped by the fact that Castiel was apparently "sort of" drunk. Not that Sam blamed him for being drunk. Luke "Lucifer" Gottlieb had always low-key given Sam the creeps, but he was the band's lead singer and guitarist and there was no denying his talent. Sam was still trying to figure out what that had to do with Castiel being on his doorstep, because it sounded impossibly like he wanted _Sam_ to replace Luke, when Cas straight up propositioned him.

What even was his _life_ tonight?

"Look," he said finally after several long moments of trying and failing to comprehend the idea of _Castiel Espinoza_ offering to get on his knees and... nope, still not computing. "Maybe you should come inside."

"On the first date?" Castiel raised both eyebrows and grinned, which made Sam blush hot enough he was sure his face had to be as red as Castiel's leather jacket. Whatever it was he was drunk on didn't seem to impair his movement at all because one moment he was still leaning up against Sam's door frame and the next he had stepped forward and twisted his body around to move past Sam and into the dorm room. Sam had the impression of hot firm muscle beneath leather and fabric sliding against his chest and the scent of tequila and bitter herb smoke, and he had to bite his lip against a whine of arousal. "Oh, hey, is that a barbecue chicken and sausage pizza with mushrooms and ranch?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam managed around his suddenly very dry mouth. "Um. Help yourself?"

Castiel mumbled something that sounded like "qué chulo", but it was said around a mouthful of the unusual pizza combination, so Sam wasn't going to hold his ears accountable for accuracy. Feeling somewhat at a loss, Sam closed the door to his dorm and, lacking anything else that he really felt he could do with Castiel right there eating the pizza that had been delivered without Sam's request, began straightening up the few - very few - things that were out of place in the room. He had just reached his guitar and was trying to decide if he should put it back in its case when Castiel surfaced again and spotted him.

"Oh, good, you've got your guitar!" he said, swallowing down another bite. "I know Ruby said you can play and Mike is gonna wanna hear you himself, but you mind giving me a quick demo now?"

_TWANG!_

Sam fumbled with the guitar and clutched at the neck to still the strings and their discordant cry. He really hadn't thought Castiel was serious about that, but now the bassist was looking at him with bright blue eyes and a hopeful expression that Sam would swear could put his "puppy eyes" as his brother used to call them to shame.

"I... really haven't played in a while--" _Like since Ruby apparently stole my guitar._ "--so I don't know..."

"Please?"

There was no flirtation in the husky voice this time, no manic energy or incomprehensible hunger. The word was uttered simply, plainly, in a soft tone and with absolute sincerity. Castiel Espinosa wanted to hear Sam Winchester play the guitar for him, and had said please. And, like Westley to the Dread Pirate Roberts, it was the please that did it.

Sam froze. Swallowed. Closed his eyes. "Alright."

He heard Castiel move and opened his eyes in time to see the older man take a seat on his bed, still munching on a slice of that bizarre pizza. Well, okay, then. Sam hooked his foot around the rolling desk chair and pulled it closer to the amp, bending down to adjust the settings. He needed something soft, something that wouldn't annoy his dorm mates too much if the sound travelled through the thin walls, but something that was primarily guitar. As much as he might like to rattle off one of _Fallen_ 's own songs for Castiel, Eric Clapton was probably Sam's best option at this hour, so he sat down and strummed a quick chord that sounded... well, it sounded like an A chord with an open D tuning.

He quickly re-tuned the guitar strings - E, A, D, G, B and E again - and glanced up to find Castiel watching him with an odd expression, as if Sam was some kind of strange curiosity that defied explanation. The look disappeared when he noticed Sam was looking back. He waved a hand like a king commanding his subject to continue, which was both odd and perfectly in keeping with the surreality of the night, and so Sam looked back down at his guitar, thumbing down the strings one last time before beginning.

A, followed by E and G-sharp, then F sharp minor, D, E seven suspending the fourth, E seven, A... The chords flowed from his mind through his left hand, the fingers of his right picking out the notes of the introduction to a song he used to play for Dean, once upon a time before the fight and Sam's run for college. He knew the song by heart, and it probably shouldn't have been a surprise when the lyrics trickled off his tongue the way the notes dripped from his guitar.

_Would you know my name..._  
_If I saw you in Heaven?_  
_Would it be the same..._ _  
If I saw you in Heaven?_

_I must be strong..._  
_And carry on..._  
_'Cause I know I don't belong  
Here in Heaven..._

His voice was deeper than the last time he had sung this, puberty and long nights of coffee and smoky bars at work on his vocal chords. The deeper tones and timbre lent a stronger melancholy to the poignant lyrics, pulling older memories of Dean, of him and Sam, of the good times they had had together, brothers on the road, their Dad near enough and relaxed enough to smile now and then... it felt like a distant corner of Heaven that Sam was no longer allowed to touch to think of them, of _then_ , and Sam kept his head bowed over his guitar so as not to look up and risk Castiel seeing _everything_ on his face.

Looking down let him pretend he didn't have an audience, too, which made it easier to play, to let his fingers dance over the strings the way they wanted to. It was swimming beneath an iced over lake and finally surfacing to breathe. It was uncurling from the cramped back seat of the Impala and stepping out to stretch in the late morning sun. It was home and freedom and flying, and Sam let the music gently trickle away as the song ended with a wistful smile for the guitar, and for the brother that had last heard him play that song on a late summer night, the two of them sitting on the hood of the car that was more home than any of the four walls they'd stayed within over the years.

It took him a moment to remember that he had an audience this time, too, and his head jerked up, eyes flying over to the bed to see Castiel... slumped over on his side, the crust of the pizza nearly dropping from his fingers to the floor, fast asleep.

_Figures._

Sam gave a huff that could have been a laugh in an alternate universe where emotional constipation was normal and turned off the amp. He spent the next five minutes unplugging the cables from amp to guitar and amp to wall and putting his guitar in its case, glancing every so often at Castiel as he did. The man slept through the whole process, limbs loose and languid, features slack and soft with sleep and still almost irritatingly beautiful. It was ridiculous, honestly, but what could Sam do? He'd invited the guy in to try and sober up, and sleep would do that eventually. Mission accomplished, right?

Right.

With a brief prayer to a God he was sure had to be laughing at him and his crazy night, Sam unlaced Castiel's boots and set them at the end of the bed, then wrestled the man who was only slightly smaller than him into a more fully prone position and covered him with the blanket on his bed. Then he pulled his sleeping bag out from under the bed and unrolled it across the floor before grabbing the spare blanket and dropping it on the sleeping bag to use later. Next he went to look at the remains of the pizza which, despite not sounding particularly appetizing, had been enough to Castiel Espinosa's taste that three quarters of it had disappeared into him. He dropped the crust from the last piece his impromptu sleepover guest had eaten into the trash and stuffed the rest of it into the mini fridge, and then acknowledged that he was stalling and, if he wasn't going to be able to focus on studying any time soon, he should probably go to bed.

The floor wasn't as comfortable as even the dorm's crappy mattress, but Sam had slept in plenty worse places. Wrapped up in the spare blanket and with the sleeping bag as a mattress, it didn't take him long to drift off to sleep, listening to the sound of Castiel's very quiet snores. His last thought before losing himself to Morpheus was that he hoped Castiel wouldn't trip on him when he snuck out in the morning.

 

**C** ASTIEL WAS PROUD to say that he did not trip over Sam's prone and quite somnolent form when he woke, bright and early and full of energy as he always did after mixing tequila and marijuana, but it was a near thing. It was not the first time Castiel had woken up in a strange bed after a night of indulgence, but it was the first time he had been fully dressed upon waking and with the owner of the bed very clearly having slept elsewhere. He was going to have to ask Sam about that when the younger man woke up because he was fairly sure he hadn't imagined the reciprocal interest, and yet he had woken up alone and fully dressed and - he glanced around the room quickly - his shoes set neatly next to the bed instead of tossed haphazardly wherever he might have flung them upon removal if Castiel had done the removing.

Really, that part struck Castiel more than anything else about the situation. It smacked of an inherent concern and consideration for others, which might actually go a long way towards winning over Gabriel and Uriel even more than Sam's incredible talent. That much he remembered, thankfully, and just as thankfully his cell phone was right where he'd left it in the inside pocket of his jacket, no worse for having spent the night on his person instead of on a charger--

Hm, on second thought, a little worse for that. Castiel thumbed his way through the missed text messages as quickly as he could before hitting reply on the last one from Gabriel.

**_Sam is perfect. Tuned his guitar by ear and played Eric Clapton better than Eric Clapton. Bringing him to the Roadhouse. Tell Mike. Battery at 5%._ **

He hit send, then turned off his phone. Gabriel would pass the word along to Michael, and Michael would be at the Roadhouse, most likely with Gabriel and Castiel's phone charger. Uriel might show up just to be an arse - he had hated the idea of anyone replacing Luke last night, but then that could have been the super-sized crush talking instead of the self-preservation for their band and future careers, so who knew? Michael was going to be the hardest sell, anyway, for some of the same reasons that Gabriel would be the easiest, and Castiel was not looking forward to having to argue for Sam to even be allowed to play to show Michael that it wasn't just Castiel's hormones wanting to bring Sam on board.

He couldn't deny that the effect Sam had on his hormones was part of the appeal, Castiel thought as he gazed down at Sam's sleep-slack face, long lashes fanned against his cheekbones hiding those incredible eyes he'd seen the night before, pink lips slightly parted and looking entirely too soft and inviting and mesmerizing in a different way than Castiel had found them the night before. He leaned forward without meaning to, drawn to the young man, and then stilled as the movement dislodged a wave of smoke and cannabis scent from his clothes. Castiel frowned and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, wincing at the thick and sour taste that came from falling asleep while intoxicated and without brushing his teeth. There was also the tell-tale aftertaste of sausage and ranch dressing from his favorite 'marijuana munchies' pizza, which lined up with his memories even if it seemed incomprehensible that Sam Winchester would just happen to have that specific pizza on hand the same evening that Castiel came by, buzzed and stoned, looking for a guitarist.

_Meg, probably._ Either she really liked Sam or she still really loved Castiel if she was behind the pizza being there. He probably owed her something like twenty fruit baskets for this, and she probably knew it, so it would be in his best interest to text her the next time his phone had enough power to handle extended repayment negotiations.

And he probably owed it to Sam to get himself cleaned up a bit after invading his space and passing out on his bed and, from the available evidence, inadvertently kicking him out of said bed. Castiel bit the inside of his cheek to stifle the groan that threatened to escape at the way his muscles protested the stretch of getting up off the bed. The bed that creaked and sighed as his weight left it, causing Sam to stir and hum as if rousing. Castiel froze, watching, but the younger man only sighed softly and settled back into sleep once more, leaving Castiel feeling unsettled by the mingled feelings of relief and disappointment.

_Get cleaned up,_ he reminded himself, and began to carefully strip out of his somewhat ripe clothing. _Shower, sober up the rest of the way, and figure out how to make a better second-first impression on the hot fan who you want to play guitar for you. For your band. Focus on the needs of the band, not how much you want Sam to let you test out his climbability._

Castiel paused, his hands at the waistband of his boxers, and let himself indulge in that mental image for a few moments. Then he shook himself out of it and stripped off his boxers, eyeing himself with a rueful shake of his head before tossing the boxers over the bed with the rest of his clothes, carefully laid out to get as much ventilation as possible without being able to hang them up. He felt a brief pang about not being able to ask permission before borrowing the towel hanging on the back of the dorm door, but then again it was probably for the best that Sam get as much sleep as possible before he had to face Michael.

_And maybe let myself go down again before I wave that in his face,_ he thought with a stifled sigh as he grabbed the towel of the hook and wrapped it gingerly around his waist. It was early still, not even five, so the chances of being spotted by Sam's dorm mates were pretty low, but better not to give them too much gossip to carry back... assuming anyone even recognized him, but Castiel wasn't going to bet on anonymity now.

The hall was mercifully empty when Castiel opened the door and poked his head out, glancing up and down. The communal showers were on the right, further down the hall from the stairs than Sam's dorm. If Castiel continued to be lucky, he could be in and out before anyone noticed. And if someone did.... Well, Castiel had never been particularly shy, even if he was more reserved than Gabriel and a lot less libertine than Luke had always been. He flipped the lock to ensure the door wouldn't lock behind him and headed out, walking casually and without any obvious hurry or furtive attempt to cover his presence which, he knew from experience, would only attract attention if anyone was awake enough at this hour on a Saturday to notice the showers running. He glanced back once - Sam was still sleeping, sprawled on his stomach with his head turned towards the bed and one arm flung out - then slipped out the door.

 

**S** AM WOKE SLOWLY, which was a luxury he had embraced once he had left for Stanford that his father never would have allowed. During the week, he was up with his alarm in order to get in a morning run before he had to be out and about for classes or his morning shift at the Hoppin' Bean that helped him afford things his scholarship wouldn't include, like the cover charge at whatever bar or club _Fallen From Grace_ was playing. Even on Sundays, when his alarm was set a whole two hours later to give him a bit of extra sleep, he was up and at 'em with the shrill and strident beeping of his alarm to get washed and dressed for church. Saturdays, however, he allowed himself to indulge in waking up at his own pace. No classes, work shifts, or religious services to get to, just the true luxury of being able to sleep in as long as he wanted and linger in his bed after waking until his overdeveloped sense of responsibility pulled him out of bed and back to his studies and revisions.

This morning in particular was one Sam wanted to let himself linger in bed for as long as he could. The dream from the night before was still drifting across his memory, much more tame than the usual dreams he had about Castiel Espinosa, but still more than surreal enough to qualify. It had seemed so real, too, with bizarre little details that Sam had never paid attention to enough to be in his dreams before, like the way the scents of alcohol and pot could combine with someone's sweat, and couldn't figure out how or why his brain was attributing that combination to Castiel. He also couldn't figure out why his subconscious had decided to have the man who practically oozed sex and sensuality on stage fall asleep on Sam's bed fully-clothed despite how edible he'd looked in that iconic red leather jacket, but Sam's brain had always been shaky on detail when trying to imagine Castiel shirtless, nevermind anything more revealing.

How would a dream like that even continue? Dream Sam had removed Castiel's boots and gotten him properly into bed before going to sleep on the floor, which Real Sam had to admit was something he would have done. It did bring up the question of why he couldn't have dreamed Castiel showing up at his dorm and coming onto him while _sober_ , but Sam was well aware that his self-esteem was crap so his subconscious mind had probably decided it was more likely that Castiel wouldn't show up unless he was drunk and possibly stoned... but what would happen after? Sam snorted softly to himself, the sound emerging as a tiny huff as he rolled onto his side, the arm he had been resting his head on slowly waking up with the sluggish ache followed by pins and needles of returned blood flow. Ignoring the probability where Castiel snuck out of his dorm without waking him, he supposed the best case scenario would be the other man still being here in the dorm. Maybe he'd be bleary and tired, hungover and glad for the water Sam would offer him. Or maybe he was the type that didn't get hangovers and he was instead kicked back in Sam's bed waiting for him to wake up while doing something on his phone. Or maybe he borrowed one of Sam's legal pads and was scratching out the lyrics to a new song--

"Coffee's almost done if you think you're ready to wake up now," a low tenor voice spoke up from somewhere above and to the left of where Sam lay. There was a muffled click-a-clink of plastic and glass knocking together, followed by a hissing sizzle. "Breakfast will be another couple of minutes, though. Your hotplate's not big enough to cook bacon and pancakes at the same time."

_...What?!_

Sam's eyes flew open as he catapulted upright, his gaze flying towards his bed first. Sure enough, the blankets were mussed as if someone had slept on top of them, and there was a set of vaguely familiar clothes laid out across the surface. Then the memories of _why_ those clothes looked familiar caught up with his lagging brain, and his head whipped around towards the direction of the voice, and the clinking and sizzling, and the smell of bacon.

_Skin,_ commented Sam's brain from a distant corner not currently being fried by the combination of bemusement and lust that swept over him. _Skin and ink... oh, those are the wings... they really do take over his whole back... Are those Enochian glyphs underneath them? Really pushing the angel motif, huh, Castiel and oh my god Castiel Espinosa is standing in my room wearing a towel!!_

Sam's mouth, being much less coherent and not exactly connected to his brain in the mornings without coffee, offered up a plaintive, "Murgle?"

"Only about eight-forty," Castiel answered, tucking the spatula he was using to flip bacon into the top of the towel-- Sam dragged his eyes hastily away from _that_ region before the whimper bubbling up in his throat could escape, choosing instead to focus his eyes on slender, deft hands as they moved through the motions of pouring a mug of coffee. "I was about to wake you up in a few minutes anyway since I don't know how long it'll take you to be ready to go and it's a fifteen minute drive from here to the Roadhouse. Cream or sugar?"

"Mmph," Sam grunted, reaching up on autopilot to accept the mug when Castiel correctly translated that as "neither, thank you" and offered him the plain black coffee. "Murfle?"

"Ten AM rehearsal," Castiel answered, retrieving the spatula from the Place Sam Was Not Thinking About. "How much do you remember from last night?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Sam's mouth had apparently been jolted into some semblance of coherency by the first mouthful of coffee a bit faster than his brain, because it took him a moment to realize that he'd said that out loud. "I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"No, no, fair question," Castiel waved off the apology with the spatula. "Tequila and cannabis does weird things to me, but it doesn't make me black out anything that happens."

"Weird things?" Sam felt like a parrot, and hastily gulped down half the cup of coffee. It was black and bitter and awful, but it did the job of waking him up and for a first cup in the morning that was all he cared about. _Well, and keeping my stupid mouth too occupied with coffee to say anything embarrassing...._

"I get super hungry for specific flavor combinations," Castiel explained, which Sam had to admit covered the barbecue chicken and ranch pizza with mushrooms. "And when I actually eat my fill I fall asleep quickly only to wake up super wired at the crack of dawn. And I've been told I get a little incoherent because not everything I'm thinking makes it out of my mouth, which is why I asked what you remember."

"Oh," Sam mumbled into the coffee mug. The sound echoed back from within the mostly empty ceramic well. Sam blushed and drained off the last of the coffee before slowly lowering the mug and meeting Castiel's expectant look and outstretched hand. "Uh, thanks," he added, because Sam with caffeine in his system was better about remembering his manners.

"It's your coffee," Castiel dismissed, shuffling the bacon off of the hotplate and wiping the surface down with a corner of the towel. Sam hastily averted his eyes as the towel movement flashed even more skin in his direction. "For that matter, it's your pancake mix, too."

"Where did the bacon come from?' Sam asked before he could stop himself. He knew he hadn't had any in his meagre mini-fridge, but he was also pretty sure Castiel hadn't brought it with him. The remaining explanations that Sam's still not entirely coherent mind could dredge up involved Castiel conjuring the bacon up like a genie or even a literal angel, or it was another bizarre delivery from whoever had sent the pizza the night before.

"I gave your neighbor ten bucks and said he could keep the rest if he got you a pack of bacon and a half-carton of eggs," came the remarkably normal answer. Before Sam could worry about which neighbor Castiel had roused from their room, his impromptu overnight guest turned wide eyes on him and asked with a low level of audible panic, "Wait, you're not Jewish, are you?"

"Uh, biologically, maybe, but not practicing or... oh," Sam shook his head as the caffeine penetrated his system enough to rouse his brain. "Don't worry. I try to eat healthy, not necessarily kosher. Bacon's fine in moderation." Considering Sam had been going to church rather than temple for the duration of his time at Stanford so far he rather doubted eating bacon could be considered his greatest sin anyway.

"What about sausage?"

The question was said with such a bland seriousness that Sam was positive it wasn't just his slow to reboot brain responsible for how long it took him to register the innuendo. In point of fact, it took him looking at Castiel, and Castiel giving the borrowed towel a rather pointed adjustment before it registered. When it did, Sam nearly choked on his mouthful of coffee, coughing a little and swallowing hard until his throat was clear enough to rasp, "Not before the second date!"

The noise that Castiel made in response was entirely too contemplative for Sam's continued sanity, and he hastily buried his attention in the refilled mug. Coffee, coffee made sense. He could focus on the coffee while letting his subconscious mind slowly wake up enough to contemplate the bizarre reality where a local rock god was naked in his room and making him breakfast while propositioning him....

"So, dinner?"

Sam blinked, startled out of his utter failure to contemplate nothing but coffee. "What?"

"After rehearsal, can I take you to dinner?" Castiel asked, proving that Sam had actually heard and interpreted the question correctly the first time. "If we count breakfast as a first date..."

"I really wouldn't," Sam shook his head. Dates were supposed to be more premeditated than just breakfast after an impromptu clothes-on sleepover between near total strangers. "Besides, isn't cooking for someone, like, fourth date material?"

"Well, considering we've already slept together...." Castiel trailed off and waggled his eyebrows in such an exaggerated fashion that seemed so totally unlike him that Sam couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"In the barest possible sense in that we were both asleep in the same room," he pointed out in his driest voice, "which is _not_ the same as really sleeping together!"

It was Castiel's turn to blink, though he still looked more intrigued than startled. "You, ah, sound a little frustrated by that."

He'd known it was coming. Castiel had already propositioned him in the light of day, har-- _difficult_  as it was to wrap his mind around that. Sam scrubbed his free hand down over his face and looked up at the ceiling to avoid looking at Castiel. "You kinda propositioned me a lot last night, so..." He shook his head and hurried to clarify, "I mean, I wasn't going to do anything about it, not when you were intoxicated--"

"That makes you more noble than, like, eighty percent of the people who've tried to get in my pants before."

Sam froze, a wave of cold horror washing over him. He knew it was something that happened, had heard stories from Dean even before he'd gotten to Stanford and been invited to the kinds of parties where alcohol was freely available even if you weren't yet legal or didn't have a good fake ID, and he'd had to help discourage more than one frat boy who'd thought a drunk girl was a good time waiting to happen, but it still felt like a shock to the system to hear _Castiel_ , six foot tall and very well muscled Castiel, speaking so casually about people having tried to bypass consent with him.

His silence drew Castiel's attention, and some of Sam's turmoil must have showed on his face because the older man hurried to say, "Tried, not succeeded. Drunk me is just as picky as sober me about who I take to bed, and I'm big enough that I can mostly fight off the ones who don't take no for an answer, at least long enough for Mike or Gabe to come back me up."

"Okay then," Sam said slowly. It really didn't lessen his worry, because he'd noticed the conspicuous lack of mention of Lucifer - Luke - in that list, as well as no mention of the band's keyboardist, Uriel Sobol. Given that he had never actually met any of _Fallen From Grace_ before last night, that could mean any number of things - and given how Luke had quit without warning and left the band in the lurch like he had, Sam wouldn't blame Castiel for leaving him out of the list now - but it was not making him feel any better about the fact that there had been attempts at assault in Castiel's past despite the way the bassist was attempting to reassure him. Maybe even because of it.

"You're thinking really hard over there," Castiel spoke up, raising an eyebrow. When Sam shot him a guilty look that avoided going any lower than his shoulders, he snorted. "Dude, no. If I minded you looking at me without clothes on, I'd have gotten dressed again before you woke up. Way I see it, I came on to you while intoxicated and you turned me down and, from the way I woke up, took care of my passed out ass instead of trying to tap it which makes you, like, twenty times better than any other potential partner I've had besides Meg, and you and I haven't even kissed yet!"

"That's not actually making me worry for you any _less_ , you know," Sam huffed, discomfited over the way he did actually feel mollified by Castiel's favorable comparison of him.

"White Knight type, hm?" Castiel asked, tilting his head to one side. It was said teasingly, with just the right edge of flirtation, but it still made Sam grimace. He'd been called that before once, in a lot less complementary tones, and he didn't much like the implications.

"I try not to be, actually," he said honestly. "Anyone being nice to people just so they'll sleep with him isn't really that nice a guy."

"And you'd rather be a decent person for the sake of decency?" Castiel filled in, that considering tone back in his voice. When Sam just shrugged and picked at the sheet near his leg, he nodded. "Good. You're genuine as well as incredibly attractive. Now you just need to come show Mike and the band how awesome you are with that guitar of yours and then you can be all over me on stage warding off anyone who might try something. Added bonus of I get to have you all over me on stage," he finished with a decided leer.

"You're not serious," Sam said after he managed to pick his jaw back up off the floor. "I'm not... I'm rusty as hell, and if last night was any indication I'd just put everyone to sleep even if I could manage to play for a crowd!"

"Last night was extenuating circumstance," Castiel reminded him. "And I know you know our music is more up tempo than Clapton. Crowds..." He trailed off in thought as he flipped a couple of pancakes on the hotplate. "Is it a phobia or just a lack of opportunity to get you used to it?"

"Uh, the latter," Sam said, hunching his shoulders. _Plus a heavy dose of Dad's contempt for my playing so I only really played for Dean and a few people in the dorm that stayed over breaks..._

"We can work with that," Castiel said with the air of a promise. "All else fails, you play for me. Not Mike, not the crowds, just me. You can do that and you got this in the bag." He shot a glance at the clock. "But you should probably get dressed now. Breakfast will have to be on the way to the Roadhouse, and I already told Gabe I'm bringing you."

"You're going to kill me," Sam groaned under his breath, but he got up as instructed and went looking for his jeans and a clean shirt.

"Not before you save us," Castiel told him cheerfully. There was the sound of cloth hitting the floor and Sam turned his head before he thought better of it. "Toss me my pants, would you?"

"Meep!"


	2. Chapter 2

**T** HE ROADHOUSE WAS a pretty decent-sized bar and diner with a stage set up for live music on weekends about twenty minutes outside of campus. It was where _Fallen From Grace_ held most of their rehearsals in the mornings before the bar's owner, Ellen Harvelle, would open for the lunch crowd save Saturdays where she didn't open until dinner. Sam admitted to some familiarity with the place, but he couldn't navigate his way there without directions plus eat at the same time, so it was left to Castiel to drive them while they ate hastily-made sandwiches of bacon and pancakes that kept either of them from much conversation.

With Castiel behind the wheel of the blue 2001 Pontiac Firebird Formula he'd driven over to Crawford Hall and Sam crammed into the front seat with his guitar and amp tucked up nice and cozy in the postage-stamp-sized back seat, they made it in just under fifteen. The car was pulled into one of the few parking spaces right up by the entrance at just as the clock hit ten AM. They were also the last to arrive, judging by the cars already there. Castiel spotted Gabriel's Viper parked beside Uriel's hatchback, and Michael's glossy black van, the sides of which Castiel had painted with _Fallen_ 's logo, was on the other side next to Ellen's station wagon and an unfamiliar white Lotus Elise. Sam was starting to look nervous again, but he hefted the amp in one arm and slung the strap of his guitar case over the other to follow when Castiel directed him to and followed him inside.

He was right that they were the last to arrive. He was also mistaken in just how many people were there waiting. Ellen, of course, was behind the bar and out of the main area, but her daughter Jo was also there, pouring over several open books with her mother. On stage, Uriel was hooking up his double-stacked keyboards with a scowl on his face that promised murder to anyone who dared say the wrong thing at the wrong time; Castiel was inclined to attribute that mostly to Luke's desertion until he got a look at the other four people. Gabriel and Michael were to be expected, but standing next to Gabriel was a blonde man with a scruffy beard cradling an orange and white Glarry ST-E, while next to Michael stood a dark-haired man with a trimmed goatee holding a cherry red Ephiphone Les Paul SL. All four of them looked up as Castiel approached with Sam and said dryly, "You couldn't warn me we'd be having a full-on audition?"

"Well, I would have said something," Gabriel drawled as Michael sighed and looked at the ceiling, "but you went and turned off your phone after sending me that crazy text at ass-o'clock this morning."

"Five percent battery," Castiel snarked back, pulling out his phone - still off - and waggling it at Gabriel. "Speaking of which...."

"Yeah, yeah," his cousin grumbled, pulling Castiel's charger out of his pocket and tossing it over as he continued in saccharine Spanish, " _Oh, thank you so much, my most awesome cousin! Think nothing of it, dear boy!"_

 _"Bite me, bitch,"_ Castiel cooed back in kind, hearing Sam smothering what sounded like a choked laugh beneath Gabriel's hearty guffaw, before he switched back to English to ask, "Who've you got, then?"

"I've got Balthazar Roche," Gabriel said, waving a negligent hand in the blonde's direction. "And Mikey brought Zach Warren. The sasquatch lurking behind you the Sam you sang such high praises of over text?"

"You think I'd bring him if he wasn't?" Castiel couldn't help but ask, eyebrows raised.

"I think he looks like your type," Gabriel said in his usual blunt manner. He gave Sam a very obvious once-over, brows drawing together in a tiny, puzzled frown. "And I think he looks familiar. Anyone else recognizing him?"

Castiel couldn't see Sam since the younger man was behind him, but he felt the way Sam was trying to draw in on himself. He glanced around at the others, noting Michael's impassive stare and Uriel's hostile glower with irritation. Roche was giving Sam his own version of an appreciative once-over that actually irritated Castiel even more, though he tried not to show it. Warren, on the other hand, had stepped away towards one of the tables and was putting his guitar carefully into the open case sitting there.

Castiel wasn't the only one who noticed Warren's actions. Michael, following Castiel's line of sight, frowned in puzzlement. "Mister Warren? We haven't even started yet."

"I know," Warren said, looking up and shooting a small smile, not at Michael, but at _Sam_. "And I really am thankful for the opportunity, Mister Gottlieb. But that's Sam Winchester standing behind your bassist there and I know I'm not good enough to compete with him."

"Zach, no," Sam protested, drawing surprised and thoughtful looks from Gabriel and Michael that Castiel was pretty sure the younger man didn't even see. "You're really good, dude, I've heard you shred it before!"

"Same as I've heard you," Warren pointed out. "And believe me, Sam, it means a lot to hear you say that, especially when most of what I know now is stuff you taught me, but you gotta know you're... man, you're on a whole other level!" Warren turned to Michael, then, and said, "Trust me on this, sir. Sam's amazing. You don't need me here if you've got him."

"We'll take that into consideration," Michael said, diplomatic as always. Castiel shot a glance at Gabriel, but his cousin was too busy doing his "inscrutable man of mystery" routine to confirm whether or not Michael really sounded just the slightest bit shaken. "Are you sure you want to cede your audition time? I won't be free to drive you back to Stanford campus until after the auditions are finished."

"Unless ceding my audition time means I can't stick around to hear Sam play again," Warren said, closing up the case as he hooked a chair with his foot. "It's been a while since we've had a jam session over break...."

"Yeah, uh, when Ruby moved out beginning of last semester, she apparently took my guitar with her," Sam answered the implied question, surprising Castiel enough to turn and look at him directly. Sam actually flinched under the attention, his hand tightening around the strap of the guitar case. "I just got it back yesterday, so I'm probably kinda rusty...."

"If what I heard last night was what you call 'rusty', I can't wait to hear you when you've really hit your groove," Castiel interrupted him with blunt assurance. Sam blushed, and Castiel let himself appreciate that for a moment before turning back to Michael. "How're we doing this? Order of arrival, rock paper scissors...?"

"Your boy looks like he could use a minute, mate," Roche spoke up from where he'd been watching the byplay with sharp calculation. Now he was all confident smiles as he slung the strap of his guitar over his head and patted the side. "I'm ready to go when you are, just say the word."

"Very well, unless Mister... Winchester, was it?" Michael looked at Sam and received a tentative nod. "Any objections to Mister Roche going first?" Sam shook his head. "Alright then, please take a seat with Mister Warren for the time being, and we'll hear you after Mister Roche. Uriel, please join the rest of us so our applicants aren't distracted having you lurking behind them."

"This is a waste of time," Uriel snapped, even as he moved with obvious reluctance from behind his keyboards. "There's no way you can replace Luke in time for the gig and it's an insult to him to try!"

"Yes, Uriel, your objections have been _repeatedly_ noted," Michael sighed, waving him to one of the seats on the opposite side of the stage from where Warren was sitting.

" _Ad nauseum_ ," Gabriel muttered. "We get it, Uri, you're crazy in love with Luke and can't bear to betray him even if it means saving the band. Give it a rest!"

"Just because you have no concept of loyalty--"

"Don't even go there," Castiel broke in with a growl, stepping up next to his cousin to glare at the keyboardist. "That is a battle you will lose even faster than whether or not we will take on a new guitarist. _Luke_ left _us_. Yesterday we mourned. Today we pick up the pieces, find new pieces to fit the holes, and adapt." He narrowed his eyes, staring Uriel down. "Are you a piece, or another hole?"

"Enough, Castiel," Michael broke in, using the same firm and commanding tone that had called them all to order many times over the last year and a half. "You have made your point. Uriel, you should know better than to question anyone's loyalty when they're still here and Luke isn't."

"He's your brother!" Uriel protested. "And you're just--"

"Yes," Michael interrupted, a hard edge to his expression. "I am. Because Luke _is_ my brother, which makes me far more familiar with his faults than even you are. His leaving has in no way detracted from the talent and potential of the rest of you, but the fact of the matter is that the current set list requires a skilled guitarist and I am not willing to hold my breath and hope Luke will get over his own ego and come back. Maybe we won't find a new guitarist in time for the concert, but I refuse to just give up."

"Me either," Gabriel spoke up with a seriousness that Castiel rarely saw from his cousin. "Question my loyalty to the band, whatever, I've earned that and I know it - _lo siento_ , Cassie - but music is my life and I'm done riding the pine, okay?" He glanced back at Castiel, and in that look Castiel saw the full wealth of history that none of them talked about anymore. Then Gabriel looked back at Michael. "I'm all in."

"I know, Gabriel," Michael cracked a small smile. "You and Castiel both, though I shudder to think what might happen if anyone made you choose between the music and each other."

"There'd be Hell," Castiel answered, lips twitching into a smirk as he bumped the fist Gabriel held out to him without looking. "So let's make sure it doesn't come to that, hm?"

"And we've kept our esteemed contestants waiting long enough," Gabriel added as he flopped down into the nearest chair. Castiel followed suit, spinning another chair around to straddle it backwards. Together, they turned to stare at Uriel until the other man huffed and stalked over to take a seat on the other side of the table.

"Dude, what was that all about?" Castiel heard Warren whisper.

"Not my place to say, man," Sam murmured back. Castiel caught Gabriel shooting another of those narrow looks in Sam's direction, but thankfully Michael cleared his throat and took a seat at the table between Castiel and Uriel.

"Apologies for the delay, Mister Roche," he said as all eyes turned to the stage where Roche was going through a few basic fingering exercises in a transparent effort to pretend he hadn't been hanging on every word spoken. "Whenever you're ready."

 

 **S** AM WOULD PROBABLY never admit it for fear of disappointing Castiel, but he was grateful for the fact that there were other people here and he wouldn't be required to just jump into an audition at which he was still not sure he even belonged. It would have been even better if Zach had decided to audition anyway instead of just giving up. Sam knew that Zach wanted to go professional, and it didn't sit well with him that his presence was enough to make his friend just... not even try. Zach's effusive praise only made it worse, putting a tight knot of pressure in his gut to live up to the praise as well as Castiel's obvious expectations.

He set his amp down on the floor with care, then slumped down into the chair beside Zach, cradling his guitar on his lap and trying to ignore the argument breaking out between the remaining members of _Fallen_. It wasn't as if he had been blind to the dynamics of the group over the year and a half that he had been watching their shows, but it still felt surreal to have those dynamics bursting out everywhere rather than simmering beneath the surface of every move. Uriel had always tracked every move Lucifer made, and the man who had styled himself the Devil had always cast just enough attention his way to keep that focus even as he demanded the adulation of the band's audience. The pull between Castiel and Gabriel that had led to more than a few people speculating if they were the kissing kind of cousins now made Sam ache from nostalgia and wish, even more than he had last night, that Dean was here with him. He would have bet his last two pool hustles' worth that Gabriel Ochoa and Castiel Espinosa would understand the bond between the Winchester brothers if anyone could.

Watching them with Michael was also eye-opening. Castiel had called him their manager and Uriel called him Luke's brother, but there was definitely more to it than that. Castiel and Gabriel both deferred to the older man with an underlying warmth that spoke more of family than employment, a warmth that was absent from Uriel's interactions despite the similar deference; it wasn't Luke making the difference, then, or at least it wasn't because Luke was his brother. Castiel had been more right than Sam suspected the bassist had meant to be that Michael was the one on whom Sam would have to make his impression. It startled him to realize that he was beginning to think in terms of going through with this audition, even knowing that he didn't really have a choice at this point, not with Castiel having convinced him to come for the good of the band and Zach's unexpected vote of confidence in him. Sam just hoped that when Gabriel eventually figured out why he looked so familiar, it wouldn't set back his chances.

The narrow look Gabriel shot him before Michael called the audition to start made him doubly glad he had decided to err on the part of discretion when Zach had whispered his question about the argument. It really wasn't Sam's place to talk about, anyway, having been a nobody fan at the time _Fallen_ 's percussionist had briefly quit the band to play drums for a nordic-flavored rock band under the stage name "Loki". Uriel had done his best to cover the beats with his synth, but it hadn't been the same, and Gabriel had come back after _Yggdrasil Or Bust_ had busted. Around that time had been when Luke started going by Lucifer, and now over a year later hardly anyone in _Fallen_ 's fanbase remembered the incident. Judging by Uriel's comments, the incident had been a bit more involved than any of them had let on, and was neither forgotten nor entirely forgiven by everyone in the band.

A hard guitar riff drew Sam's attention to the stage. Balthazar certainly had stage presence, his posture and expression demanding attention. Sam watched him, his movements and body language, able to see certain similarities to Luke's usual stances and attitudes, if a little more hedonistic than strictly sinful. Even his voice, when he started singing, had that same rough, just rolled out of bed growl to it with just a hint of mid-Atlantic haute intonation.

That was where the similarities ended. Sam fought to keep himself from frowning as Balthazar went through the basic chords for the song once, only to repeat those same chords for the second verse without any attempt at variation. There was consistent technical accuracy and plenty of steady repetition, but no playfulness, no edge. Sam exchanged a look with Zach - was this it? - before risking a look over at the band.

Uriel's smugness stood out the most. The keyboardist could not have been more obvious in his belief that these auditions were a waste of time, and he clearly felt that he was being proved right. Gabriel, by contrast, was trying to look supportive, but couldn't quite hold back the disappointment; whatever he had been expecting from Balthazar was not being delivered and he knew it. Sam chanced a look at Castiel and had to bite the inside of his cheek; the bassist was listing, sliding down from where his head was propped up by one hand on the back of the chair, as if he were falling asleep. Only Michael continued to look politely interested as Balthazar wound down and finished the song with another loud sustained chord. Castiel "jolted awake" at that point and pasted a look of attentiveness on his face just before Michael looked around at the band.

"Thoughts?" he asked.

"Exactly what I expected," Uriel drawled, though Michael's sharp look made him hold his tongue on reiterating his "waste of time" speech. Sam caught the way Balthazar stiffened, indicating that he heard it anyway, and bit his lip.

"Textbook perfect rendition," Gabriel offered with an encouraging thumbs up. Sam ducked his head to hide the wince. That was almost as bad, really.

"You got the rhythm," Castiel spoke up, straightening in his seat. He leaned forward, looking right at Balthazar, serious and blunt but still somehow sympathetic. "Thing is, you don't have the soul to go with it. As a rhythm guitarist, you're great, but... we need a lead."

"Like you," Zach muttered to Sam under his breath, grunting softly when Sam elbowed him quiet again.

"We need _Luke_ back," Uriel was saying, glaring at Castiel as if it was somehow his fault.

"But we don't _have_ Luke," Michael reminded him. "We currently have nothing, plus a capable rhythm guitarist auditioning." He turned back to Balthazar, who quickly schooled his features away from the disappointed frown he had been sporting. "Castiel is right that much of _Fallen_ 's music requires a lead guitar. How familiar are you with the band's music?"

"Not very," Balthazar admitted with an apologetic wince that Sam echoed. "I'm a quick enough study I could probably pick up enough to fake it through your set list until I really learn it, but I get that's not something you want in a lead."

"Is your hand okay?"

Almost as one, eyes turned towards Sam, who shrunk back as he realized that the question had, indeed, come from him. Uriel's hostility was back, as was Gabriel's narrow consideration, but Michael and Castiel were both looking inquisitive and Balthazar looked surprised more than anything.

"S'a little stiff this morning, yeah," he said, blinking. "How'd you know?"

"Your, uh, transitions," Sam mumumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "When you went from G to C-major-seven, you were pulling your fingers back and down a beat before you hit the chord, like you needed the extra time to get there. My uncle, Bobby, he used to do the same thing because his hand got stiff from when he broke three fingers working on a Plymouth."

All eyes went back to Balthazar, who gave a rueful little smile and waggled the middle and ring fingers of his fret hand. "Regular eagle eye, you are. Broke these two in a bar fight four years ago. Can't really manage the fancy fingering anymore, though, sorry, mate," he added with a genuinely apologetic look to Gabriel.

"Can't help an old injury," Gabriel said with his own rueful smile. "You're still really good, even with the stiffness."

"Spent the drive over with my hand on the heating pad," Balthazar admitted. He looked back at Sam. "Your uncle have any tips on how to deal with it?"

"Horse liniment, believe it or not," Sam answered. "Twice a day, three times when it's cold out, and regular exercises with one of those stress balls."

"As fascinating as this medical lesson is," Uriel broke in, his tone cutting, "we're still back at square one. Unless Castiel's little pre-med pet can do any better."

"He's pre-law, not pre-med," Zach spoke up, affronted. Sam covered his face with his hands and tried to will the heat of embarrassment away as Uriel answered with an insincerely apologetic, "My mistake."

"Think that's my cue, eh?" Balthazar unplugged his guitar and jumped down off the stage. "Looks like you're up, Eagle," he added as he crossed to stand in front of Sam, hand out. Sam took the hand, surprised when the other man pulled him to his feet and patted him on the shoulder. "Hope you don't mind if I steal your seat."

"Only if you don't mind if I steal your stage," Sam managed in an obviously joking tone, relieved when Balthazar laughed and settled back into Sam's vacated chair. He looked at Michael and, when Michael nodded at him, moved to the front, leaving his small amp behind and stepping up onto the stage.

" _Damn_ ," he heard Gabriel mutter, followed by Castiel's returned mutter of, "I know, right?"

"Gentlemen," Michael halfway scolded, his tone fond. Both of them chuckled while Uriel huffed in annoyance.

Sam did his blushing best to ignore everything, busying himself with picking up the cord crossing to the amp, turning the sound down before plugging the cord into his guitar. The last thing he wanted was a burst of feedback that would make him look exactly as much the ameteur he felt like. He turned the amp up to two and checked the strings, retuning the low E and G strings back to where they should be, then ran through a couple of fingering exercises to make sure the pitch was right before turning the amp back up to eight. Another quick scale and then an alternate scale to check the sound, and then he turned back to face his unnervingly quiet audience.

"Well," he said, swallowing a little at the way the acoustics of the stage threw his voice out louder than he had expected. "What would you like to hear?"

"Freebird!" the blonde young woman over at the bar called out, startling a laugh out of everyone, including Sam. She winked at him before turning back to the spread of papers, allowing Sam to turn his focus back on the band and Michael.

"That would do if you want," Michael said, gathering his control back, though a faint smile played around his mouth. "Just pick something that will give us an idea of your capabilities."

Well, that didn't help much. At least the night before, Sam had had some specific guidelines for himself when choosing what to play for Castiel, given the late hour. This was different, and Castiel had been right when he said that the music _Fallen From Grace_ typically played was much faster tempo than most of Eric Clapton's music. It didn't help that Balthazar had called him "Eagle", which was sticking practically nothing but _Eagles_ music in his head. He wasn't even aware that he'd begun to pluck out the opening riff for "Hotel California" until he heard Uriel mutter at Castiel, "Your pet does know he has to sing, right?"

"How about letting him get through a song before you start nitpicking?" Gabriel snapped back. Castiel didn't even respond to the jibe, just leaned forward, his eyes locked on Sam.

 _Please,_ those eyes whispered.

 _Okay,_ Sam's heart whispered back.

It felt like nothing at all to transition from "Hotel California" into something faster, more energetic. He saw Castiel perk up at the transition, saw Michael's eyebrows raise as Sam's fingers pulled the familiar notes out of the strings to play. The absence of a drummer led to a quick slide along the strings in place of the opening beats, earning him an appreciative noise from Gabriel that he tried not to let go to his head as he led into the chords for the first verse.

 _So no one told you life was gonna be this way..._   
_Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D-O-A...._   
_It's like you're always stuck in second gear..._   
_Well it hasn't been your day, your week, your month_ _  
Or even your year...._

He couldn't help but lock eyes with Castiel as he reached the chorus, taking the older man's words to heart and singing directly to him, hoping that he understood. _I'm here doing this for_ **_you_** _,_ he couldn't help but think even as he sang.

 _I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour_   
_I'll be there for you, like I've been there before_   
_I'll be there for you..._ _  
'Cause you're there for me too...._

 

 **A** PLAYFUL ARPEGGIO along the strings followed by a solid sustained chord to bring the song to a close before the second verse brought the music to an easy halt. Castiel had to hold back a whoop, feeling Sam's triumph and joy pulsing in his veins. He had not missed the meaning behind that look, either, and the urge to rush up to the stage and physically demonstrate his enthusiastic appreciation was setting him near to vibrating.

 _"You're drooling, Cassie,"_ Gabriel murmured under his breath. _"If I didn't already know you wanna bone the kid, I'd know now!"_

 _"Like you didn't appreciate that ass stepping up on stage?"_ Castiel muttered back, though he did try and tuck the more obvious lust back down behind the appreciation in time for Michael to turn and look at the band. "Exactly what I expected," he put in before Michael could ask, throwing out Uriel's earlier words with a far more appreciative grin.

"I didn't know what to expect," Gabriel added, lifting his hands for a slow clap, "but damn, kid, you made that guitar dance!"

"And presented us with overplayed nineties pop," Uriel complained, drawing scowls from around the bar and a hiss of anger from where Roche and Warren sat. " _Fallen_ isn't a cover band despite including one or two per show. You can't learn to play along to _our_ music listening to it over and over on your stereo," he added with a haughty sneer at Sam.

"Uriel!" Michael snapped.

"Tell me I'm wrong!" Uriel demanded.

"You're still way across the line," Gabriel growled.

Only Castiel was still watching Sam, so he was the only one who saw the shift. His eyes hardened, glinting like polished metal as his shoulders straightened and his jaw set. The riff he pulled from the guitar was high and loud, interrupting the brewing argument and arresting attention before sliding down into a bridge Castiel knew like the back of his hand.

 _"Do you hear me whisper, whisper in your ear?"_ the smooth baritone voice asked, purring over the growl of the guitar that evoked the same rumble as Castiel's bass without overtaking where it would be played. _"You may call me liar... but baby, I see, I see everything, perched here on your shoulder... And I know... I can set your heart on fire~!"_

Fret, fret, fret, marching backwards to a hiss of strings like a cymbal, straight into seven barely there notes in a descending dance as the baritone purr rose to rumbling thunder amid tight minor chords.

_"You get down on your knees to pray... Ask forgiveness for the sins you couldn't help that day... Holy Mother Mary... may be listening, it's true-- for the devil who's been watching over you~!"_

The creature of sin and sex that used to be Sam let the last chord go with a little smirk that punched Castiel hard in the gut with lust. Never, not in all the months since he had written that song, had Castiel ever heard "Angel On Your Shoulder" sung with so much seduction or played with even half the playful lure he had always felt the lyrics demanded. Luke had never been able to reach down that deep, his seduction full of empty promises. Not like _this_ , with heat and silk and invitation to partake of the most delicious of sins together.

 _Marry me,_ his heart screamed.

"I know _Fallen_ 's music," Sam was saying, brought back to mortal form now but still with an edge to the creature he had briefly become for them. "I've been to almost every gig you've played for the past year and a half. If I don't know a song yet, I'll learn it." His momentum faltered then, and he glanced down at his guitar before dragging his eyes back up and adding, "If you want me to."

Castiel heard Uriel drawing breath and readied himself to kill his band mate if he said one more disparaging word, but Michael beat him to it. He raised a hand, halting whatever Uriel had planned to say, and gave Sam a long look before nodding. "You're hired, Mister Winchester."

"I'll say!" Roche exclaimed over Warren's whoop. "Consider me well and truly trounced, mate! Well done!"

"You can all help me put together Meg's thank-you fruit basket," Castiel told his bandmates as Sam's blush returned full force.

"Why stop at fruit?" Gabriel asked. "Get that woman some Godiva chocolate and a spa day!"

"Perhaps you should save the celebrating for _after_ the concert we have to play _tomorrow night,_ " Uriel huffed, just short of scathing. "If you all insist that we go on without Luke and we're done with auditions, then perhaps we could get down to the business of rehearsal?"

"I think that's the closest we're going to get to approval from our resident grouch," Gabriel stage-whispered to Castiel, who snorted. "Welcome to the madhouse, Samsquatch!"

"Thanks?" Sam shifted his weight, hesitating, then added, "Uriel does have a point, though. If the gig is tomorrow night, that's not much time to bring me up to speed on placement and stage directions and song order for the sets."

"Better work ethic than Luke, too," Gabriel shot a look at Michael, who sighed but did not disagree.

"Let's keep it brief, though, please," their manager requested. "Basics only, simple review of the set lists unless we need to change something for whatever reason. We can go over details better at the actual venue, and I want everyone well-rested for tomorrow after last night's stress." He waited for the nods, grudging in Uriel's case and serious in Sam's, before turning to their extras. "Gentlemen, thank you both for coming. Mister Warren, I believe I can spare a few minutes to return you to campus now--"

"Or I can save you the trip and give him a ride myself," Roche interrupted. Even Warren blinked in surprise, halfway out of his chair.

"You sure?" he asked, sounding about as skeptical as Castiel felt. Roche shrugged.

"S'not exactly on my way, but then I've got nowhere to be for a few hours yet, and it means your mate won't be kept waiting."

"Zach?" Sam called, and a look passed between them before Warren nodded.

"We're twenty minutes from campus, right?" he checked, picking up his guitar case. "I'll text you the code in twenty-five."

"Got it," Sam nodded, pulling an older model cell phone out of his jeans pocket and giving the screen - and, presumably, the clock on it - a pointed look. "If you don't, I'm calling Becky."

"Code?" Michael asked as Warren and Roche departed, voicing the same question going through Castiel's mind.

"Zach's in my dorm," Sam explained, confirming Castiel's guess for how they knew each other. "Our dorm's RAs keep a list of specific 'leaving with a stranger' codes, just as a precaution against abduction. In this case, if Zach doesn't text me with one of those codes in twenty-five minutes or less, I call his twin sister. If he just forgot, she murders him for making her wake up before noon. If he's in trouble, she murders Balthazar."

"Good precaution," Gabriel whistled. Castiel, however, had a different concern.

"Is there anyone you need to text?"

"I already did," Sam answered with a shy little smile, ducking his head to the point his bangs fell across his eyes. "While you were getting your phone charger from Gabriel. Jess will make sure you're cleared to take off with me unscheduled in the future."

"Confident, were you?" Gabriel quirked an eyebrow.

"About this?" Sam shook his head and darted a quick look  at Castiel that made his gut clench with want from the faint hint of heat. "I was reasonably confident that Castiel was serious about wanting to get to a second date, though." He froze and looked at Michael. "Is... that going to be a problem?"

"Not unless either of you makes it a problem," Michael said. "You're both consenting adults who I hope will have the sense to use protection and talk out any issues you may have before they become problems for the rest of us."

"You told Luke you would castrate him if he slept with any of us!" Uriel complained, shooting a poisonous look at Gabriel when he dared to snicker. "Why do Castiel and his pet get free reign when we don't?"

"No one ever said _you_ couldn't sleep with a bandmate if you wanted," Michael said in mild tones that actually seemed to give Uriel pause. "The stipulation only applied to Luke. As for why Castiel and _Sam_ \--" He gave Uriel a pointed look, which Uriel returned with a mulish one. "--are not being dissuaded, I have plenty of evidence of Castiel's ability to carry out his romantic and sexual affairs with maturity and empathy, and I am extending a show of faith in Sam's ability to do the same."

"And if there's one thing that brother of yours didn't have, it was demonstrable empathy and maturity!" Ellen spoke up, followed by the clatter of a large tray being set on a table. Castiel looked over to see that the tray held a large platter of sandwiches and five mugs with a carafe of coffee.

"Luke cared!" Uriel protested, scowling when Gabriel scoffed. "He cared about _us_."

"About what you could do for him, maybe," Ellen retorted, putting her hands on her hips. "Didn't seem to care about anyone but himself and his own satisfaction most of the time. If he hadn't understood the word 'no' when backed up by a shotgun, you would have been looking for a new guitarist a lot sooner."

"My aim's not good enough to ensure he survived to learn his lesson," Jo spoke up, leaving the papers on the bar and crossing to join her mother, staring Uriel down until he looked away.

"I'm so sorry," Michael said, rubbing his eyes. "I wish you had said something sooner when I could have taken him to task for his transgressions."

"Not that any of us think you can't take care of yourself, Jo," Castiel put in when the blonde began to scowl. "We just would all prefer you not have to."

"If he'd kept coming after that, I promise I would have let you know," Jo relented, rolling her eyes when the band continued to look worried and apologetic. "Seriously, you guys, he was an entitled douchebag but he wasn't the literal devil, regardless of his stage name, and obviously we never held his bad behavior against the rest of you."

"We're still willing to feed you, after all," Ellen put in, waving a hand over the tray. She picked up the carafe and a mug and began pouring coffee. "Come on, all of you have some lunch before you get to playing. You too, son," she called to Sam, who jerked in surprise but carefully slid his guitar off from around his neck and set it gently on the stage before jumping down. "Lord knows you lot think you can live on music alone, but your bodies say otherwise!"

 

 **S** AM HAD NEVER wondered what it would be like to be at the center of a tornado or whirlwind, but now he felt quite confident in saying that this was it. From waking up to find Castiel naked and cooking him breakfast, to being ushered through the shortest audition imaginable, and then an incredibly awkward lunch that carried straight into a brief but gruelling rehearsal taking him through the two-part set list for _Fallen_ 's upcoming performance. Sam felt wrung out and pulled taut like one of his own guitar strings, right up to and including the fuzzy reverb in his head.

"This isn't a recently booked gig, right?" he asked Castiel in one of the brief lulls between songs when the older man was swapping out his bass for a violin. "I mean, it's been planned since before Luke quit?"

"It's been booked for the last month," Castiel confirmed, frowning when he noticed Sam's troubled expression. "Why, what's wrong?"

"I didn't know about it," Sam confessed, grimacing a little at how whiny and entitled that made him sound. "I mean, I don't find out about every gig you guys play, but a month is a long time for me not to have heard something before now."

"Well, you'll hear about every gig we have from here on out," Castiel assured him, melting Sam's brain just a little further with a quick peck on the cheek. "Now let's see how you do with 'Shadowdance'. We didn't play it very often because Luke hated sharing the spotlight, so I don't know how well you picked up his part."

The guitar part for "Shadowdance" turned out to be fairly uncomplicated, meant to showcase the violin more. Under Michael's approval and Castiel's encouragement, Sam pulled a few flourishes that mimicked the violin trills out of his strings and turned the seductive lure into a playful back and forth that had Gabriel yelling for them to "get a room, already!" Uriel complained, but by that point Sam was becoming used to the idea that Uriel would complain no matter what Sam did.

He was proved right when, during their run-through of "Heaven Help Them" and Sam backed off on the guitar so as not to overwhelm the Latin chant of the bridge, Uriel complained again, citing that Luke had always kept the guitar steady and growled out the lyrics instead of intoning them like a two-bit priest.

"I'm not here to be your replacement Luke!" Sam finally snapped, glaring at the keyboardist. "I'm here to be _Fallen_ 's guitarist, which means knowing when to play and when it's not actually necessary. You may have been satisfied with your audience never being able to understand the bridge over the guitar, but as someone who was in that audience I can assure you, we like being able to hear the lyrics!"

"They're in _Latin_ , no one can understand them anyway!" Uriel sneered.

"Every Latin student, lawyer, and Catholic can," Sam shot back. "Or would if they could hear it over the music. _Actus Contritionis_ isn't exactly an unknown prayer!"

"You might recall that Luke and I argued over that very subject, Uriel," Michael interjected. "Luke's eventual decision to growl the lyrics and override much of it with harsh guitar was to cover his inability to remember and pronounce the Latin correctly and refusal to let Castiel or Gabriel take the part."

"I, uh, actually wanted to ask about that," Sam admitted, trying not to shrink down as he made himself speak up. "Could we split the lines of the prayer up over multiple voices, kinda overlapping? It's a lot to pack into the bridge and with just one voice it feels kinda rushed. It's a prayer that asks forgiveness and promises to do better, y'know, not really something to just... shout at people."

 _"Holy Mother of God,"_ Gabriel intoned solemnly, confusing Sam until he realized the other man was speaking Spanish and not Latin as he continued, _"Cassie, my most beloved cousin, if you don't marry that man, I'm going to!"_

 _"Hands off, you ass,"_ Castiel snarked back as Sam felt heat exploding across his face. _"That's my future husband you're drooling over!"_

 _"Slow it down, guys,"_ Sam pleaded, holding up a hand and shaking his head. Looking into Castiel's wide blue eyes as his jaw began a migration towards the floor, he added with his best attempt at a teasing expression, _"Could we maybe wait until after our first date before you start planning our wedding, hot stuff?"_

"Any other languages you happen to know, Sam?" Michael asked with evident interest as Uriel scowled while Castiel and Gabriel picked their jaws up off the floor again.

"I can curse in Yiddish," Sam offered with a half-shrug. "And I know enough Cajun French to get my older brother out of whatever trouble he got himself into during Mardi Gras or Carnival."

Michael hummed and nodded, making a note in the large three-ring binder he had open in front of him. "Okay, then. Try it staggered. Sam, you have line one, Castiel, line two, Gabriel take line three--"

"You can't be serious!" Uriel interrupted.

"--and the three of you take line four together," Michael went on as if Uriel had not even opened his mouth. "If the three of you are satisfied with how that sounds, we can run it a few times to let you get comfortable with the rhythm of the trade-off. If it doesn't work, Sam, will you be alright reverting to the solo until we have more time to arrange it for three voices?"

"If we need to for tomorrow night," Sam agreed. The day before the concert _was_ cutting it close for a major rearrangement of the vocals, even if it was just for the one song.

Uriel grumbled, but when they started to play, he was as on-cue as ever. They went through the bridge twice, and while it sounded better, it wasn't quite right. Sam considered suggesting that a four part split would make it fit better, but one look at Uriel's stormy expression killed that impulse. His earlier outburst aside, Sam didn't want to go pissing off his new bandmate any more than he already had, not when he hadn't even had the job for a full day and Uriel's temper was already up. Fortunately, Michael had them table the new arrangement and move on, and they didn't have another incident until the last song of the set.

"It's practically our trademark!" Uriel argued.

"It's only our 'trademark', as you put it, because Luke loved the ego boost," Gabriel growled back. "'Devil Inside' has an easier guitar part than 'Running With The Devil' 'cause there's more focus on the percussion and keyboards."

"So you want the chance to show off instead?" Uriel scoffed.

"You _don't_?" Gabriel threw up his hands. "Oh, no, I forgot, you like being a silent shadow!"

"Hey! Why not ask our new guitarist which one he would prefer to play?" Castiel asked. Sam silently cursed the bassist for his consideration as he ended up pinned by two angry sets of eyes.

"Uh," he floundered a little, thinking quickly. How could he defuse this powder keg? "Uh, well, I'm good with either... I mean, I know both, so my preference doesn't really matter." He swallowed, shooting an apologetic look at Gabriel as he added, "Maybe we should stick with 'Running' for this show and talk about switching in the future? I mean, your fans are already going to be thrown a curve ball having me up there with you instead of Luke. No need to overwhelm them with change right off the bat...."

"There you have it," Castiel came to his rescue. "A bit more familiarity before we change things up wouldn't hurt any of us."

"Wonderful," Uriel sneered. "If that's settled, then, can we get on with it? Some of us still have things to do before tomorrow night."

"I believe that concludes our rehearsal, yes," Michael sighed. "Sam, if you say you know both songs, I see no reason not to take you at your word at this point."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, saying a silent prayer of thanks. His fingers were aching from having played so much already, and he knew it was going to be even worse after tomorrow night.

"Call me Michael," their manager said with the barest of smiles, "or Mike, if you're so inclined. I'm your manager, not your boss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tears In Heaven" is by Eric Clapton. "Freebird" is by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and is a frequent joke request used in films. "I'll Be There For You" is by The Rembrandts, and is famous for also being the theme from the television show "Friends". "Running With The Devil" is by Van Halen. "Devil Inside" is by INXS. Any other songs mentioned or performed in this chapter are by me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delayed posting in the forms of Real Life, GISH, illness, and more Real Life. Here's chapter three!

**W** ITH REHEARSAL CALLED for the day, Uriel was quick to vanish as soon as he had unplugged and packed up the keyboards. Castiel took his time packing up his bass and violin, watching as Sam carefully tucked his guitar into the generic soft case he'd brought it in and then just sort of hovered, unsure and lost, until Ellen called him over to the bar. Castiel wondered what that was about, but Sam didn't seem upset, just surprised.

 _"You found a real treasure there, Cassie,"_ Gabriel murmured under his breath as he came over to get the covers for his drums.

 _"Ruby found him,"_ Castiel corrected, grimacing at the truth of it. _"I can only be grateful that she lost him, too, and that Meg remembered him fondly enough to tell me. I might never have known..."_

 _"You would have found out,"_ Gabriel assured him, patting his cousin on the shoulder. _"Finally placed why he looked so familiar when he played your song and you nearly creamed yourse--oof!"_ He grimaced and elbowed Castiel back. _"Our favorite drink of tall, dark, and sexy from the back row, right?"_

Castiel gave a low hum of satisfaction, unable to resist giving Sam a lingering look where he stood at the bar, posture more relaxed than he had been the entire rehearsal. He heard Gabriel echo the hum and turned to shoot a narrow look at his cousin. _"Don't think that means you get to swoop in and steal him away."_

 _"So not fair. I called dibs!"_ Gabriel pouted, causing Castiel to roll his eyes.

 _"Sweet baby jesus in a trenchcoat, Gabe, are you five?! He's a person, not a plush toy!"_ he exclaimed, exasperated. Gabriel's eyes flickered to a point over Castiel's shoulder, pupils contracting. Castiel froze. Swallowed. "He's behind me, isn't he."

"Eeyup," Gabriel agreed, popping the "p" with a smirk. Castiel couldn't look, even when Sam made a familiar strangled noise and Gabriel's smirk grew. "Hey, Samazing, settle something for us. You seemed to respond well to our flirting from the stage the last several months, so tell us: was it me or Cassie you last jerked it to?"

"Damn it, Gabriel--" Castiel half-growled, so ready to strangle his cousin that he almost missed it when Sam croaked his name. "--wait. Really?"

Sam was beet red and looking pretty much anywhere except at Castiel _or_ Gabriel, but he nodded, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I mean... not that it really means anything," he mumbled.

"No?" Gabriel asked, eyebrows up and sounding quite unimpressed by that statement.

"Well," Sam shrugged. "That's just lust. Me looking at him, him looking... looking at me.... None of that is any kind of basis for a relationship. I mean," he said, looking up now that he seemed to be gathering a bit of momentum, "all I've known about him until last night was his stage persona, and while I'd love to learn more, lots more, last night and today were just the tip of a... really surreal iceberg that I'm still having trouble believing isn't just all some really vivid fever dream or hallucination."

"Do you often have hallucinations about naked musicians kidnapping you to be in a rock band?" Castiel blurted out, his own eyebrows climbing up towards his hair line.

"At least one," Sam mumbled, ducking his head and peering at Castiel from beneath the fall of his hair in a way that went straight to his nether bits and made him wish his _Firebird_ had a bigger back seat. _Although, Ellen does have that couch in the back room...._

"Awww, you two are _preziatu_ ," Gabriel cooed, cupping his chin in his hands and batting his eyes at them both, laughing and dancing backwards when Castiel took a half-hearted swing at him. "Just for that, you two can help me load this crap into the back of Mikey's van!"

"You do know I would have done that anyway, right?" Castiel deadpanned as he grabbed his bass and violin cases and then picked up one of the drums. "Go ahead and grab your guitar, too, Sam. You can stash it in Mike's van with our stuff or put it in my car, your choice."

Sam opted to stow his guitar in the van, though he tucked his little amp back into Castiel's back seat. Michael came out of the back to help, and between the four of them they had all the instruments and sound equipment that didn't belong to the Roadhouse loaded and secured in short order. From there, Castiel made good his and Sam's escape from his cousin, citing his promise to take Sam to dinner. Gabriel got in one last jibe by shouting "As you wish!" at their retreating backs and laughing when Castiel flipped him off.

"Should I even ask?" Sam murmured as he once again folded his long legs into the cramped quarters of Castiel's front passenger seat.

"He's being supportive, but since it's Gabriel he's also being an ass about it," Castiel sighed. Seeing that the confusion didn't clear, he explained. "He knows I hate 'The Princess Bride'. Nothing against the movie itself, really," he added hurriedly at the stricken look that crossed Sam's face. "It just seems like everyone smart enough to figure out that Barcelona is in Spain and not Mexico gets the _brilliant_ idea to call me a Spaniard and expects me to talk like Inigo Montoya."

"Okay, I can see how that would get annoying," Sam agreed with a wince, though the curiosity was rising. "You're really from Barcelona?"

"Born and raised," Castiel nodded, which led to Castiel telling Sam about how his mother's family, Gabriel included, was Basque and not strictly Spanish. That fed into a conversation about growing up in different areas of Spain versus different parts of America ("I've lived in just about every region of the country thanks to my Dad never being able to keep us in one place." "From what I've seen since living here, the only difference is what language you hear most often.") and eventually led to Sam confiding that his paternal grandmother was a Polish immigrant who married his grandfather for citizenship more than for love ("That's what you meant by being biologically Jewish!" "And why I can curse in Yiddish; it's the only 'Hebrew' Dad ever taught us.") and had raised his father as a Jewish atheist.

"He kept the atheist part more than the Jewish part," Sam grimaced. "I was too young to remember, but Dean said that before Mom died they used to get into arguments about it, about how she kept telling me and Dean that angels were watching over us. After she died, Dad was real bitter about it and used to rant about how if God and His angels really existed then they were as cruel as demons to let her die."

"But you don't agree?" Castiel asked. Sam shook his head.

"No one human life is more important than any other," he said with a steady conviction that made Castiel's heart flutter. "Even if you ignore the God Paradox, if God was going to intervene for Mom, He would have to intervene for everyone or it wouldn't be fair, and there's no telling what kind of mess that would create. Death exists as a part of life, so it's gotta be important and having divine miracles blatantly bypassing death all over the place would stir up all kinds of trouble."

"Because humanity hasn't evolved that much beyond reactionary behaviors and anyone who showed up and started healing people with a touch and raising the dead would end up killed just like the mythos says Jesus was."

There was a moment of silence, during which Castiel very nearly had a moment of panic, and then Sam said, his voice just a little strained, "How far are we from wherever you're taking me to dinner?"

"Um, maybe seven minutes... why do you ask?"

"Because I really want to kiss you right now, and I really shouldn't do that while you're driving."

It took them fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant, mostly because it took several minutes to stop kissing once they started after Castiel pulled the car onto the side of the road.

The restaurant Castiel had chosen was one of his favorites, a vaguely Spanish flavor pizzaria called _Vesta_. Meg had tolerated it for Castiel, but she'd hated seeing so many ingredients she couldn't pronounce on the menu and so few flavor combinations that she liked. It was a risk bringing Sam here, but he hadn't been able to think of anyplace else off the top of his head besides one of the chain restaurants or fast food places, and Sam _had_ said he tried to eat healthy.

He needn't have worried. Sam practically lit up at the sight of the salads menu, though Castiel caught the momentary anxiety when the younger man got a look at the prices that made him wonder before he remembered the state of Sam's mini-fridge in conjunction with his still being a student. He played it off with a teasing reminder that this date was his treat and that he came here regularly enough not to worry about it. Finding that out got Sam grilling him on his favorites - the barbecue chicken and sausage with mushrooms and ranch pizza he loved for post-high munchies was notably absent from the menu, after all - and they even managed to find a few preferences that overlapped enough that Sam was quite willing to try the unfamiliar elements to see if he liked them, too.

Unlike the more personal topics that had come up in the car, conversation in the restaurant was lighter and uncomplicated. A rundown of their personal music preferences besides the band they both belonged to (Castiel had a guilty pleasure for orchestral pop and violin that influenced his own instrument preferences, while Sam had only really started to form his own musical preferences away from his father and brother's "mullet rock" once he got to school) and a playful debate about the merits of having a single favorite color versus several preferred colors with no clear favorite (both of them agreed the latter was easier, even though Castiel advised Sam to figure out a consistent answer to give if the band got big enough to do interviews which made Sam groan and bury his face in his folded arms until Castiel patted him on the head) and even whether or not pie was better than cake. That one, they opted to test for themselves only to discover that the dessert menu had gelato, biscotti, and a Mexican chocolate bread pudding, but held neither cake nor pie.

"I guess that gives us something to do for the second date," Sam offered, blushing when Castiel beamed at him.

The drive back to Stanford was less of a race than either of the previous trips. Even so, the thirteen minutes spent crammed back into the front seats still felt weighted. It wasn't just Sam's six-foot-four length and defined frame making the space in Castiel's car feel unusually small, but the heavy anticipation between them, the heat that had ignited when Castiel had pulled them over to allow Sam his kiss and they very nearly had not been able to stop. That heat was banked for the moment, but it simmered under the surface of Castiel's skin, ready to roar up into a fire at the first sign of a green light from Sam, and from the way the younger man was fidgeting and casting darted glances in his direction he felt it too.

Despite the tension, they managed to keep up a light enough conversation during the drive about coffee preferences. Sam confessed shyly that, while the plain black coffee was a taste he had acquired for practicality's sake, he had been known to try some of the more fanciful drinks offered at the Hoppin' Bean, a coffee shop just off campus at which he apparently held a part time job. Castiel bit his tongue against mentioning that a job like that would probably get in the way of rehearsals during the week whenever Sam wasn't in class, instead admitting to his own caffeine-laden sweet tooth, particularly for anything with cinnamon.

"Can't have it all the time," he sighed. "Too much dairy and sugar does a number on the vocal cords, you know? But it's a great treat now and then."

"So what about the rest of the time?" Sam asked.

"No laughing," Castiel warned, and felt himself melt a little as Sam gave a solemn nod and made the "cross my heart" sign. "Spiced teas with honey, actually. Gabriel got the band hooked on them when _Fallen_ first formed, well, got all of us singers hooked on them. Uriel declared his voice a lost cause, though I think he still drinks them when no one's looking."

"Even though he doesn't sing?"

"The hot tea and honey is still good for the throat, and it's not like he hasn't healed up from the surgery... tonsillectomy, nothing serious, just awkward in an adult. Uri's just... not a singer. Give him piano keys and he's great, but his passion isn't in singing and he can't make himself fake it."

"Is that your way of politely telling me that I can't sing either?" Sam yelped and clutched at the door as the car swerved, which Castiel might have felt bad about if he was not too busy staring at him in dismay.

"Sam, do you have any idea how much I wish I had known you a year and a half ago?" he demanded, incredulous. "I mean, forget Luke! _You_ would have been invited to be part of _Fallen_ as lead singer and guitarist from the start!"

"Easy there, Cas, I was teasing!" Sam held up his hands more from placation than surrender, and from the way he bit his lower lip and looked away Castiel knew that Sam knew he wasn't buying it. "Look... if you'd asked me to be in a rock band a year and a half ago, I would have thought someone was playing a prank on me. I nearly did think that when you showed up yesterday evening. It's still sinking in, to be honest, but I don't think you're the type to go this far for a prank."

"No, I wouldn't," Castiel agreed, his tone soft with a renewed understanding, despite how baffling it was that Sam honestly had so little confidence in his skills. With what little Sam had told him of his family, Castiel had his educated guess as to who was responsible. "Something like that isn't a good prank. I mean, Luke might have done something that cruel if it didn't conflict with his ego, but not me."

"I know," Sam murmured with one of those shy, sweet smiles that melted Castiel's insides. _The guy has dimples, holy shit!_ "I know, Cas. And I promise, I'm working on believing that... all of this... is really happening. Just... try to be patient with me and my occasional insecurities?"

"Always," Castiel murmured back, solemn and fervent as a vow. Sam's blush returned, but Castiel was distracted by the unfamiliar nickname Sam had used for the second time. "What was that you called me just now?"

Sam blinked at him, confused, before his eyes widened with realization. "Oh... 'Cas'? I'm sorry--"

"No, it's... I like it," Castiel said, his own cheeks feeling warmer than usual. He cleared his throat. "Just don't call me 'Cassie', okay?"

"Don't call me 'Sammy' and you have a deal," Sam answered with a knowing grin.

"Deal."

 

 **B** Y THE TIME the car pulled into the parking lot outside Sam's dorm building, he had his cell phone out and was dutifully typing in the numbers that Castiel rattled off for him to save under "Cas", "Gabe", and "Mike" respectively. Sam would not have used the nicknames, but Castiel had pointed out that the familiarity implied with their use could only help in convincing himself that everything was real. It was a good point, and that led to Sam leaving his amp in Castiel's back seat when he got out of the car.

"My guitar being gone will just make me believe it was a really vivid dream," he explained at Castiel's questioning look as he shut the door. "My amp being gone doesn't have that as an explanation."

"Fair enough," Castiel admitted, nodding as he joined Sam near the car's nose. "Hey, what're you doing tomorrow morning?"

"Um," Sam blinked, wondering where this was going. "I usually attend the eight-thirty church service and then study until it's time to go over to the Bean for my shift." A thought occurred to him and he grimaced. "I should probably go in early to let Gwen know I'm quitting so she can call someone else to cover my slot in the lunch rush line-up."

"Would you like some company?" At Sam's raised eyebrow, Castiel turned just the slightest bit pink. "I haven't been to church in... way longer than I really want to admit, but in addition to getting to spend more time with you it will make coordinating the rest of the day easier since there's still a lot to do before the show."

"I'm not objecting," Sam assured him. "Just... I guess some of my grandmother's Jewish atheism rubbed off on me because I kinda spend a lot of the time I'm there mentally arguing with the priest."

"Really?" Castiel lit up. "That's awesome. Eight-thirty service, you said?"

"Yeah. I start walking over around ten after eight."

"I'll meet you at the steps, then," Castiel nodded. There was a hesitation, a very slight fidget with his car keys, and Sam would forever curse and praise the tiny voice in his head that sounded like Dean yammering at him to take a hint and kiss him, because Castiel met him halfway when he stepped forward and reached out.

This kiss was different from the frantic, lust-fuelled kisses in the car. There was still plenty of lust, but it was slower, deeper. Castiel fit into Sam's arms like he belonged there, or perhaps he simply made himself at home in Sam's embrace. The leather of his jacket was warm from his body heat beneath Sam's hand, but still so much cooler than the heat pouring between their mouths. Dry lips became slick with each other's saliva as they opened to each other, tongues moving together in a languid, unhurried dance. Sam caught traces of the prosciutto and pineapple pizza Castiel had eaten, and beneath it the same warm tang of lemon and sweetness that seemed to cling to the interior of his mouth. It was a flavor Sam was fast becoming addicted to, and he found himself eager to learn if that taste would still be present beneath various other flavors and situations.

It was about the same time that he was contemplating whether or not he might actually enjoy tasting Castiel's morning breath that he also realized that he had forgotten to breathe through his nose and was beginning to get a bit light-headed. The resultant inhale through his nose at such close range was enough to break the mood and with it the kiss, Castiel's lips separating from his amid breathless giggles that he couldn't help but echo despite his embarrassment. The older man smiled up at him, eyes sparkling with a light Sam thought might be related to joy, and squeezed him just a bit.

"I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, Sam," he said, voice just a shade more rough the way it had sounded that morning.

Sam swallowed. It was on the tip of his tongue to invite him back inside his dorm, to ask him to maybe sleep in his bed again with Sam beside him on the same mattress this time, but he held the words back. Too soon. "I'll be on the steps at ten after eight."

"I'll be waiting," Castiel promised.

It took them both a few more seconds to get their arms disentangled from around each other, neither of them particularly wanting to let go and yet both of them becoming uncomfortably aware of their audience of milling students, at least a couple of whom were catcalling. Sam had to force himself to step backwards away from Castiel, almost tripping over the curb before he could make himself turn around and walk into the dorm like a semi-normal person. He didn't hear the engine turn over until he reached the doors and couldn't resist turning his head to watch Castiel back the car out of the parking space and drive off. If he ever got to talk to Dean again, his brother would have some choice words to say about Sam's appreciation for that two-door Pontiac over his beloved Impala, but right at that moment it was Sam's favorite car in the world, cramped front seat and all.

Getting past his dorm mates proved slightly more difficult than he had anticipated. Word had spread through Jess that he had left with someone that he had later texted the all-clear code for with a name to add to the "safe outsiders" list in the RA's office, and several of his friends had put that together with Luis's story of the "hot guy in a towel" who had paid him ten bucks to buy eggs and bacon. All of them wanted details and most of them weren't put off by Sam's pleading of being tired and needing to get in at least some studying tonight before he passed out. It was worse when Jess noticed he didn't have either his guitar or his amp with him even though she'd seen him leave with both and they nearly got campus security involved before Sam managed to get them calmed down by mentioning he'd get them back tomorrow when he went with Cas to the _Fallen From Grace_ concert tomorrow night. The sudden exchange of guilty and panicked looks was definitely curious, but Sam was just as happy to let that one go if it meant he could escape to his dorm room and try to process the last twenty-four hours.

Coming into his room was a rush of fragmented memories arrayed before him like a jigsaw puzzle inside a Picasso. The rumpled bed sheets ( _Castiel slept there! All night!_ ) and the hastily rolled sleeping bag beneath discarded pajamas ( _It was the right choice._ ) and the still dirty hot plate sitting on top of the mini-fridge ( _He cooked me breakfast! And made coffee! What the hell?!_ ) beside the discarded towel-- Nope, his brain still shied away from those dizzying glimpses of a naked Castiel Espinosa even when he knew the other man had been perfectly fine with him looking if the way he had just dropped the towel to the floor--

Sam grabbed the towel and flung it towards the laundry bag by the door, then changed his mind and picked it up to drape across the back of his desk chair. He hadn't had time to have a shower this morning, was too tired to have one tonight, and was going to need one tomorrow morning. Even without the prospect of going on stage for a concert tomorrow night, he couldn't show up to church without having showered and washed his hair in two days. He just couldn't. Even remembering that Castiel had used the edge of the towel to wipe bacon grease off the hotplate wasn't enough to change his mind, though he did make a mental note to look into buying a new towel so he could have a spare around just in case this happened again.

Shaking his head to try and clear the images of potential future sleepovers from his mind, Sam set to work picking up and putting away various discarded or misplaced items. The books which used to sit on top of his (unused) amp were returned to the desk, which needed to be rearranged to accommodate them. He laid out his khaki slacks with the leather belt already threaded and dug out his last clean button-down shirt to go with them, then changed into his pajamas and put the clothes he had grabbed mostly at random that morning in the laundry bag, making a note to do a load at the dorm's laundromat Monday after class-- Oh, no, wait, if he was part of the band now then he wouldn't be able to leave right after the concert was over because there was still the breakdown of the instruments and wiring and equipment to do. How long would that even take? Breaking down everything at the Roadhouse had taken a while, and that was just a basic rehearsal with minimal sound hook up. A full concert was bound to be even worse, and without any knowledge of what kind of help they would have on that score....

He could call Castiel and ask, he knew, but after their date ( _date!_ ) it seemed a little ridiculous to call up his...whatever they were and ask about how long set up and break down would be expected to take. He eyed his laptop, wondering if he should err on the side of caution and email his professor that he might miss his Monday morning class, before grimacing. His fight with Dean in his second year and the resulting crash of grades in all his courses had nearly made him lose his scholarship if not for the dedication of his friends getting him through and after that he'd been terrified to miss a single class unless he was bleeding out. It wouldn't be the first time he had stumbled into class still mostly asleep because he had been up most of the night and the caffeine hadn't hit yet, after all.

"Usually because I was _studying_ all night," he mumbled to himself with a huffed laugh, then winced and shot his Ethics textbook a guilty look. He had barely gotten any studying done the night before between all the interruptions, and the urge to do so now and pull another all-nighter was strong.

 _Michael said to get a good night's sleep,_ he reminded himself. _You're going to be up really late tomorrow night and it's going to be even more draining than rehearsal was today! All-nighters are off limits!_

Being a part of the band instead of just part of the fanbase was definitely going to be an adjustment.

It was with reluctant determination that Sam turned away from the desk and his books and moved to pull back the blanket. After making sure his phone was plugged into its charger and within reasonably easy reach - too close and he'd turn off the alarm and roll over without waking, too far and he would fail to answer an incoming phone call - Sam slid himself into bed. He realized his mistake only after he pulled the covers up and lay back into the pillow and the remnants of Castiel's scent clinging to his bed surrounded him. Every stray thought or memory he had been trying not to think about regarding Castiel roared to the front of his mind and demanded his full and immediate attention.

 _This'll be one for Confession,_ he huffed inside his head as he glared down the length of his body, which remained stubbornly at attention and insistent about having _his_ attention focused on Castiel's scent and voice and the glow of his skin all over in the dim morning light. _If I ever went, anyway...._

It took him a much shorter time than expected to get a grip on the newly risen problem at hand, but despite the most immediate issue being dealt with sleep was still hard to come by. When exhaustion finally won out over hormones, the scents that surrounded him eventually followed him into his dreams, spinning fantasies of smooth, ink-brushed skin, blue eyes that were somewhere between electric and celestial, and the intoxicating pull of liquid heat more addictive than any drug. His _problem_ was back and harder than ever when the strident tones of his phone's alarm shattered the make-believe seduction, and remembering that Castiel had promised to meet him that morning did nothing to calm things. If he took an extra minute or three in the shower while his conditioner was setting with his teeth sunk into his forearm to keep himself quiet, well, there was no one else in the showers to call him on it.

He had to rush getting dressed, ruefully thankful that his procrastination the night before had been useful, but he made it out of the dorm and onto the steps - neatly combed hair still wet and hands in the middle of tying his only good tie into a half-Windsor by muscle memory - just before the clock clicked over to eleven past the hour. It was still early by student standards save for the few people heading for similarly scheduled church services, but he still nearly missed the man standing at the base of the steps and looking at his watch. Clean-shaved and black hair as neatly combed as Sam's own with a black suit and royal blue tie under an oversized tan coat, the man looked more like a stand-in for Columbo than Sam's Castiel... That is, he did until he looked up and caught sight of Sam and his whole face lit up and split into a familiar grin.

"Cutting it a little close," he teased, reaching out to Sam as he got within range of his hands.

"Still on time," Sam pointed out as he went willingly into the offered embrace, daring to brush a kiss across the smooth cheek as he lowered his voice. "And your scent all over my sheets made it hard to fall asleep."

"Is that an admonishment or an invitation to do it more often?" Castiel purred back as he returned the light kiss with a tiny little nuzzle that made Sam shiver.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out," he breathed, then flushed and coughed into his fist as he drew back. "Um. Shall we?"

"Lead the way," Castiel said with a sweeping gesture towards the whole of Stanford University campus spread out around them. "I'll follow wherever you lead me."

 

 **N** ORMALLY, CASTIEL WOULD not consider himself a publically tactile person. On stage was a different matter, given the flavor of _Fallen_ 's music and the playfully seductive antics that fed into and were in turn fed by the crowd's enthusiasm, but off stage he rarely touched anyone outside of roughhousing with Gabriel and the occasional back-slap or shoulder-clap from his bandmates. Even his relationship with Meg had not carried much in the way of public displays of affection with a very few notable exceptions after concerts when his adrenaline was up and she was feeling indulgent to his dramatic whims enough to let him pick her up and spin her against a wall to kiss until they were both breathless, but that kind of closeness had only come later, in the weeks leading up to their mutual split.

Everything about being with Sam was different, from the urge to sit close to him at dinner to the very public kiss before they parted the night before. He had even been the one to initiate the closeness that morning, reaching out to pull him close and turning a simple kiss on the cheek into a nuzzle that made Sam shiver. Too fast, perhaps, when the younger man pulled away, but he didn't go far, and when Castiel prompted him to lead the way to their destination ( _Oh, Sam, I'm quite sure I would follow you into the deepest depths of Hell!_ ) he found himself not minding in the slightest when Sam took his hand, going so far as to lace their fingers together as he fell in step with Sam's long-legged strides.

The walk to the church was correspondingly brisk, forestalling conversation in the interest of covering ground quickly and saving their breath. At least, that was his assumption until a glance at Sam told him that this pace, fast by his standards, was what the younger man considered normal. Castiel wouldn't consider himself unfit, not with the regular exercise from running and cycling when he could make time between shows and rehearsals and volunteer work, but he was starting to get the distinct feeling that Sam would be a challenge to keep up with in many interesting ways.

_And aren't I eager to find out which ones!_

The church itself was nothing particularly remarkable from an architectural standpoint, being a fairly basic sand-colored building with arched entryways. The murals above the doors were what caught Castiel's eye as they joined the scattering of people walking up. They were bright and colorful and, as they drew close enough to pick out details, proved to be a mosaics rather than a paintings, the largest of which stretched above the stained glass rose window and depicted a Europeanized Christ with his arms upraised and surrounded on either side by an attentive gathering of equally European-faced people with palm trees in the background. Castiel surreptitiously checked his phone and blinked at the display showing that the walk had only taken about three minutes.

"Didn't you say the service starts at eight-thirty?" he asked in an undertone, glancing up at Sam.

"It does," Sam nodded, squeezing Castiel's hand. "I try to get here at least ten minutes early to get seated and settled because... well, you'll see."

And see Castiel did. Sam was hailed no less than twelve times, usually by very attractive girls or women, whom Sam greeted politely by name but made no move to approach. Several of the girls shot Castiel and his close proximity to Sam confused or suspicious looks, but no one asked for an introduction and Sam guided him to a seat towards the middle of the church on the left side near the center aisle. It was only his close proximity to Sam that allowed Castiel to hear the relieved sigh as they took their seats.

"I think that may be the fastest I've ever managed to get seated since I started coming here," Sam murmured in a quiet undertone that Castiel had to strain to hear.

"Hm," Castiel gave a surreptitious glance around them, then lifted their entwined hands and brushed a soft but brief kiss across Sam's knuckles. "I may start coming to church with you every week we can manage it."

Sam's cheeks pinkened at the display, but he was smiling as he squeezed Castiel's hand again. "Unless we're at rehearsal?"

"Or on tour," Castiel agreed. Sam's eyebrows shot up, and Castiel hastened to add, "We won't be touring until after the semester ends, don't worry. Uriel and I have finals coming up and Michael's defending his dissertation."

"What about Gabriel?" Sam asked, apparently fascinated.

"He's a percussion major, and there's not that much further he can go in his degree unless he wants to get a teaching certificate, which is a really bad idea," Castiel answered. "I love my cousin dearly, but he would be an unholy terror as a teacher and he knows it. He's been deferring his graduation until we can graduate together."

"So what are you studying?"

"Political science." Castiel had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at Sam's expression. "If it helps, my minor is in music composition, which is Uriel's major. Michael's second major was PoliSci, which is how we met. He's getting his Masters in Communication right now."

"Guess my pre-Law major fits right in," Sam mumbled, looking thoughtful. Castiel wanted to ask what was going through the younger man's mind, but the church organist began playing and he subsided to at least pretend to be paying attention to the service.

It was easier than he expected. As closely as they were seated and bent towards each other, Sam didn't have to speak very loud for Castiel to hear every tiny scoff and faintly murmured argument, some of which made Castiel have to bow his head to hide his grin, and at least once provoked a coughing fit from trying to smother his laughter. The comments were intelligent as well as hilarious, showing that Sam definitely knew the source material better than the priest whose sermon seemed to be a disjointed exposition on the power of faith and miracles. Castiel couldn't resist leaning close and murmuring to Sam that he definitely qualified as a miracle from some divine power, which set the younger man's face blazing hot enough that it was _his_ turn to duck his head. Regrettably, it also rendered him speechless for the rest of the sermon. He didn't let go of Castiel's hand, though, which Castiel considered a win.

By the time the priest finally wound down and the service let out with a few community announcements that Castiel paid no real attention to, Sam's blush had subsided. It returned when one of the women who had hailed him as they came in made a beeline for them, calling out, "Sam! You never did get back to me about the poetry slam in Professor Zale's classroom tonight! You in?"

"Sorry, Ava," Sam said, the politely regretful tone of his voice a sharp contrast with the near death grip he had developed on Castiel's hand. "Something came up that I really can't cancel. But give my regards to Professor Zale, okay?"

"He's going to be really disappointed, Sam," Ava told him, pouting in a way that made Castiel's hackles rise. "You always were his favorite!"

"He also knew I was majoring in pre-Law and not English Lit," Sam answered, some of the strain beginning to show. Castiel surreptitiously pulled out his phone and set his alarm to go off in one minute. "He can find a new favorite to try and groom into the next Poe or Milton or Hemingway. I have other commitments."

The timing for Castiel's alarm could not have been better. Right on the dot, the shrill beeping poured forth from his phone, echoing in the church and cutting off whatever Ava had been about to say. Castiel made a show of wincing and pulling out his phone to silence the alarm and check the time, before turning to Sam. "Sorry about that. Sam, we should get moving if we're going to be on time to meet Gabe."

"Oh!" Ava broke in, her surprise at just having noticed him blatantly false and overdone. "I'm sorry, we haven't met. I'm Ava Wilson. Are you one of Sam's professors?"

"Ava," Sam started in reproach, but stopped when Castiel gave his had a quick squeeze.

"I think I might have been his TA two years ago, actually," he said with a friendly smile that just barely hid the ice behind his eyes. "But no. Castiel Espinosa, Sam's..." he trailed off and looked up at Sam in question. "Friend, bandmate, boyfriend, devoted love slave...?"

"All of the above and then some?" Sam suggested, a smirk tugging at his lips despite the flush riding high on his cheekbones. "And you're absolutely right that we shouldn't keep Gabe waiting. Nice seeing you, Ava," he added to her open-mouthed astonishment as he and Castiel slid out of the pew in the opposite direction and made good their escape.

"Let me guess," Castiel murmured as they stepped out into the sunlight. "One of Professor Zale's 'special snowflakes'?"

"You've had the displeasure?" Sam murmured back, rolling his eyes.

"My freshman year. He tried to get me to switch majors the whole time I was in his class," Castiel said with an aggrieved sigh. "Man could not get through his head that all my 'avant garde poetry' was just my early attempts at song lyrics for a hypothetical rock band."

"Sounds familiar," Sam huffed, making Castiel perk up. Before he could pursue the tacit admission that his new favorite person in the world also wrote songs, Sam asked, "Are we really meeting Gabe somewhere?"

"Yes, but not until after lunch," Castiel let the change of subject proceed unchallenged. "It occurred to him after we left for dinner that you might need a couple of sets of clothes for stage costumes, sort of locking in your signature style, whatever that's going to be."

"Like your leather and Gabe's ripped denim," Sam looked like he might be close to overwhelmed. "I didn't even... And you said more than one..."

"We usually keep a few extra shirts in case we sweat out a salt-water lake from the lights and the body heat when we're performing," Castiel explained. "Plus having a couple of different outfits in the case of back to back shows or those times like tonight where we have a break between sets long enough for costume changes. Gabe and I are willing to help get you kitted out, but your style should build off of what you like and want to wear which means he can't get started without you there to lay down the starting point."

"Somehow I don't think flannel is going to be a good choice for sweating under hot stage lights," Sam grimaced, thoroughly confusing Castiel. Seeing the look on his face, Sam added, "I know you haven't seen me wearing it yet, but 'jeans and flannel' is actually about standard for me along with whatever fits at the nearest Good Will or local thrift store."

"Thrift store we can work with," Castiel promised. "Though speaking of clothes, I've got a change in the back of my car with your amp if we've got a few minutes before you need to be at the coffee shop...."

"I dunno, you're kinda rocking that Constantine look," Sam said, giving Castiel the same appreciative once-over he had earlier that morning that was giving Castiel all sorts of tantalizing ideas for how to spend whatever free time they could conjure up. "You can use my room to change if you want to, though."

That was also entirely too tantalizing a thought. Although.... "Does attending church together count as a date?"

There was a pause and a noticeable hitch in Sam's gait. "If I say yes, will we make it back _out_ of my dorm room before eleven-thirty?"

"Probably not," Castiel admitted with a regretful wince. It was already almost ten. "Call me optimistic, but I rather expect to take at least a couple of hours to thoroughly worship you at the bare minimum if and when you give me the go ahead."

"Then no, church doesn't count as a date," Sam said. Castiel fancied he sounded equally regretful. The tension was back a moment later as Sam stammered, "Not that it should really count as a date in the first place, except if we really want it to, which I think we both do, but there's not enough _time_ and--"

"Whoa!" Castiel exclaimed, coming to a halt and pulling Sam to a stop. "Easy there, _carinyo_. You don't have to explain. Your reasons are yours, and I don't need to know what they are in order to respect your wishes."

"I... thanks," Sam mumbled, glancing down at the ground before seeming to force his eyes back up to meet Castiel's. "And I really appreciate the way you're being respectful of my boundaries, I do. I just..." He looked down again, this time more obviously looking at where his hand was still tangled up with Castiel's. Castiel followed his line of sight, studying the contrast between their fingers. His thumb stroked over one of Sam's, and the younger man's breath hitched. "I don't know what it is about you that makes me want to break all of my rules."

"I don't know either," Castiel admitted matching the pitch of his voice to Sam's without thought. "I would ask you the same thing if I actually had rules to break. What is it about you that pulls at me to reach out to touch you all the time?"

"Is that not normal?" Sam asked, looking worried. He started to loosen his grip on Castiel's hand, only for Castiel to clutch more tightly.

"It's never been the case before, but I didn't say it was bad," Castiel hastened to explain. "It's just strange, like a permanent post-gig adrenaline rush except I'm still calm and not already half out of breath and sweating."

As closely as they were standing, Castiel could clearly see Sam's pupils dilating and the motion of his throat as he swallowed. "We should," the younger man started, then stopped and cleared his throat when his voice came out strained. "We should get your clothes and go up to my room. And talk."

"Talking is good," Castiel agreed. He hesitated, then asked carefully, "We can keep holding hands, yeah?"

"Yeah, yes, absolutely," Sam nodded, much to Castiel's relief which... really only served to underline his own realization about how much he craved Sam's touch despite their relationship only being... uh....

"Hey, out of curiosity, how long would you say we've been together?" Castiel asked as they resumed walking to the dorm parking lot. "I mean, do we start counting from dinner last night as our first official date, or from yesterday morning as of from declaration of intent to date?" He wasn't going to count coming on to Sam the night before last given his intoxication and Sam's refusal to take him up on it because of that.

"I think," Sam said after a moment of silence that was most likely from consideration given his thoughtful tone, "that we could probably say we've been together as a couple since receiving Michael's blessing... though that kinda begs the question of if we would be together now if he hadn't been okay with it."

"That's... not an easy question to answer," Castiel confessed. When Sam squeezed his hand gently, he went on, "I know what I _want_ to say - that of course we would still be together - but I can't. I think it would mostly have depended on just how disapproving Mike was about us getting together so quickly and right before a show. At the most, he would have asked us to wait on dating or anything else until after tonight. I know I'm trying not to put any pressure on you and I hope that's coming across, but..."

"But this gig is big, make it or break it, and there's a lot of pressure on the band as a whole already, not just on me as the newbie guitarist whose first performance with you is this high stakes gig," Sam finished. "And normally I would have been the one saying that starting a relationship between band members with that kind of pressure on everyone would be a bad idea and that we absolutely should be waiting until after the gig to get together, never mind, er, anything _else_." He gave one of those soft huffed laughs that Castiel was starting to find really adorable. "But, like I said, you make me want to break my rules and just... grab this thing between us with both hands and hold on tight for whatever wild ride I'm in for."

"Probably not as wild as all that," Castiel said with a chuckle, "though I don't doubt we'll probably have our moments. So long as we keep talking and being honest with each other then we'll figure it out as we go."

"Which makes our burgeoning relationship the least complicated part of this whole situation," Sam murmured on the end of a sigh. Castiel glanced over at him, but the younger man was looking forward with a pensive expression. He didn't look overly troubled by anything, so Castiel let him be to think, figuring Sam would ask whatever it was when he was ready. Certainly there was plenty to think about! Even if their "burgeoning relationship" was the least complicated part, as Sam said, that didn't mean it was going to be easy all the time.

They reached the parking lot in front of Sam's dorm before the younger man finished thinking, and Sam stood back while Castiel unlocked the car and pulled back the seat to get at the back where his backpack with his boots and a change of clothes was waiting. He caught sight of Sam's little amp sitting on the opposite seat and turned to look over his shoulder to ask if Sam wanted him to grab it... and stopped. Sam was looking between the dorm and the pavement under his feet and blushing almost as brightly as he had in the church. "Sam? Is something wrong?"

"No!"  Sam blurted out quickly, flushing even brighter. When Castiel straightened up to give him a concerned look, he added, "Really, everything's... fine. Just... y'know... kinda wishing I didn't have such a good memory at the moment."

It was on the tip of Castiel's tongue to ask Sam to explain what he meant - preferably in detail - but a group of students passing by in the middle of some sort of loud discussion or argument recalled him to himself and the fact that out in the open in front of the dorm like this was really not the best place to have _that_ conversation, either. Leaving the amp where it was for the moment, he shouldered his backpack and nudged the car door shut with his hip as he stepped in close enough to take Sam's hand again. The shy smile he got for it made his insides turn somersaults. "Lead the way."

 

 **N** AVIGATING THE DORM on a Sunday morning after church was like trying to run an obstacle course designed by a drunken fraternity who couldn't make up their minds how the track should go and kept changing things in the middle of someone's timed sprint. It was a good thing Castiel was holding his hand, because Sam had at least two moments where he was sure they would have lost each other in the madness if they hadn't been connected by tangled fingers. Not that he was too worried about Castiel getting lost - the man had found his dorm room two nights ago (only two nights? It felt so much longer) while high and technically drunk _and_ stuck around the next morning, so he would probably have little trouble tracking down the right room while sober - but he was in more danger of being waylaid by Sam's dorm mates now, and Sam was not the only fan of _Fallen From Grace_ in the dorm, or even on his hall!

 _Only one who's also in the band,_ a little voice whispered in the back of his mind, and his cheeks flushed at the way it sounded a lot like Castiel.

By some minor miracle, they both made it to Sam's dorm room without being unduly accosted by any of Sam's friends or acquaintances. The door closed behind them with a firm click and Sam slumped against the flat surface with a groan. Beside him, Castiel mimed wiping sweat from his brow (which made Sam laugh) and said, "Definitely something I don't miss from my stint in the dorms!"

"As exercise programs go, I've had worse," Sam quipped as he reached up to begin pulling his tie free from his neck. "Still, it's definitely motivation for looking into off-campus student housing or an apartment if I can find a roommate or three." California real estate was insane and there was no way Sam could afford a place by himself, especially if he was about to quit his part time job to be in a band.

Beside him, Castiel clapped a hand over his mouth and made several muffled sounds followed by a strangled whine before he dropped his head back against the door with a thunk. Sam watched in bemused concern as Castiel visibly wrestled with himself before the other man took two slow, deep breaths and let his hand drop. "Okay, I'm good now, sorry."

"Should I ask what that was about?" Sam asked cautiously.

"Something I have no business asking before we've been dating for longer than a week, never mind before the gig tonight," Castiel answered as he shrugged out of his coat to reveal that he had apparently forgone the full suit jacket in favor of a black button vest that matched the suit pants, accenting the trim waist above long legs that the overcoat had hidden from view. Then the words he was saying caught up to Sam's brain and left him feeling more than a little dizzy with the implications.

"I'll, uh, just file that under 'to be considered after finals', yeah?" Sam mumbled. Castiel made a faintly strangled noise of agreement. "Um, I should probably mention that I draw the line at hard drugs. Alcohol, marijuana, fine, we're in college in California, but anything heavier and I'm out. I can't sit by and watch someone I care about destroy themselves like that."

"Mike is going to love having you in _Fallen,_ " Castiel told him, and when Sam looked over he saw the older man was looking at him with something Sam thought was probably affection. "That's his 'hard line' on recreational intoxicants, too. Not a problem for me and Gabe, but..."

"But Luke was the type to push the line?" Sam guessed, grimacing.

"More often than not," Castiel nodded. "Also, I don't know how you are with body shyness generally, but that tends to disappear when we only have behind a tiny curtain to do costume changes for four people. It's all professional, though, no matter what kind of shenanigans we get up to on stage to rile the crowd, mid-show costume changes are too quick to even see much, nevermind do anything."

"Fair enough," Sam let out a breath and, getting the hint, set to work stripping out of his church wear and changing back into his jeans from the day before - still his cleanest pair - and the first clean t-shirt he grabbed, which turned out to be the Metallica "Master of Puppets" shirt Ruby had given him a year ago. When he turned around, Castiel had gotten himself into a shirt with a yellow smiley face that had a straight horizontal line for a mouth and read "I am smiling", and was just pulling his jeans up over his bare hips.

"Laundry day is always Monday for me and Gabe, so we can wash our costumes from the show and get my leathers back from the dry cleaners in time for the next performances," Castiel said, as if he could read Sam's mind even though he was looking down at the fastenings for his jeans as he spoke. "It's just usually too hot to bother with the extra layer of underwear, so most of the time I don't."

"I think it'll probably take me another couple of years of not having to go from dead asleep to dressed and packed to leave in five minutes before I can even go to sleep in less than a t-shirt and boxers," Sam offered, not sure what else to say in response to that. "I... Cas, I know I was the one to say that we should talk, but I honestly have no idea how to start this conversation."

"First relationship?" Castiel asked, no judgement in either his voice or expression as he looked up from his pants to meet Sam's eyes.

"Not exactly, but it might as well be?" Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "With the way Dad moved us around, none of the relationships I tried having in high school worked out for one reason or another. There was Ruby, if you could call that a relationship, but it wasn't healthy for either of us and didn't exactly end well, even if she returned my guitar. Also, um, not technically a virgin but I'm... I've never...."

"First relationship with a guy," Castiel finished. "Or at least the first that seems at all likely to go anywhere sexual?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded, ducking his head. "Dad made sure Dean and I got a very thorough education about how sex works with both girls and guys, but it's all theoretical. I never really had or wanted the chance to put it into practice before I got to Stanford and..."

"And?" Castiel prompted him gently, when Sam trailed off and refused to look up from the floor. "I promise, whatever you need to tell me, you can. I won't ever judge you for it."

"Even if I say I might not even like sex at all?" Sam nearly whispered, finally giving voice to the most painful nail in the coffin that had enclosed his relationship with Ruby, hunching in on himself from the memory of her snide comments that became more frequent than her coquettish cajoling as the weeks wore on and bringing her to orgasm felt more and more like a chore he just didn't want to put in the effort to do, finding more physical satisfaction in his own hand than her bed.

"Even then," Castiel's calm voice broke through his darkly spiraling thoughts. Sam looked up through the fall of his hair to see that the other man's expression was still gentle and without judgement. "We can take our time together exploring just what your boundaries and preferences are, but the only thing you possibly being asexual changes is how we spend the morning after the show tonight, and even then not by much."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, curious and a little concerned. It wasn't like he didn't have any sex drive at all, especially when it came to the man in front of him if his problems the night before and this morning were anything to go by, but if Castiel had actual _plans_ for after the show....

"I mean that I'd already intended to suggest we take things at your pace, only doing what you're comfortable with when you're ready to do it," came the surprising answer. "And if you're not comfortable with us doing anything remotely sexual yet, then after the show I'll go into the bathroom and beat my dick like it owes me money, then come back out and cuddle with you while the rest of the adrenaline fades until I'm good to drive you back here."

"How are you real?" Sam breathed, staring at Castiel. His biggest fear about relationships, the thing that had killed his relationship with Ruby as much as her heroin addiction, and this incredible man was just taking it in stride and promising that it wasn't the end of the world or even their relationship, promising patience and mutual exploration at Sam's pace with no judgement. "Are you sure you aren't an actual angel?"

"I'm only as much of an angel as you are, _carinyo,_ " Castiel said with a teasing grin and a wink. "I mean, Meg called me a unicorn once, but I think she meant something else by that."

"I'll take your word for it," Sam shook his head. "And, uh. I'm still good to play up the sex angle on stage, if you're okay with it."

"Gives me something to think about in the bathroom later," Castiel assured him with a shrug. "Even then, that's up to you. Luke was Lucifer, but you're Samael. Make of him what you will, be it sex god or ice prince or anywhere in between."

"I'll think about it," Sam promised. He might have said more, but at that moment his phone decided to give a shrill reminder that it was approaching time to be at work. He pulled it out of his dress pants pocket and silenced the alarm, then shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans along with his keyring. "And that's our cue to go resign from my job at the cafe and get lunch before we have to meet Gabriel. Ready to brave the gauntlet of the dorm halls again?"

"Bring it on!"


End file.
